Regular Guy Chat with Jake | Sharing Your Voice

0:00 Greetings and welcome to Real Men Feel. I'm your host, author, coach, and healer, Andy Grant. You can learn more about me at the andygrant.com. Real Men Feel exists to remind men that they are human beings and they have the right to experience and express all of their emotions. We have conversations that most men aren't having, but that all men can benefit from. A rather random feature of Real Men Feel is regular guy chats. That's when I have a conversation with an average dude with nothing to promote or sell, just a willingness to share. It's been a year and a half since my last regular guy chat. Today I'm talking to Jake Marco, a young man I met last month in a self leadership class we were both attending. We discussed Jake's experiences with purpose, spiritual growth, and giving up marijuana.

0:52 Jake discusses what his life was like before and since his initiation into the modern Mystery school. Jake also opens up about times he felt hopeless and what he's done to live a life with more joy. Let's do it. Hello Jake, and welcome to Real Men Feel. Thanks so much, Andy. It's great to be here and thanks so much for coming up to me and saying, hey, hop on my podcast. Yeah, so usually when I have these regular guide chats, it's with someone I don't know well, and I met them. Something about them made me want to reach out and give them a platform and we we met just one month ago. Yeah. So I, I think you might be the guest I know the least about that I've ever had because I think it was even just today you just you just sent me the bio today.

1:40 So I don't yeah, I don't know. I don't, I don't know crap about you, which I which I kind of think is neat. So. So tell me first, why did you say yes to coming on Real men feel. Yeah, Well, I guess when we met a month ago, I pretty much was saying like, I want to get out there, share my voice. Like I want to like I love, I love public speaking. I love just being able to like tell stories. So when you came up to me and said, hey, here's, you know, here's my card. I do this thing. It's like, OK, well, you know, let me, you know, put my, my money where my mouth is. So I'm going to say this is what I want. Then why would I not say yes?

2:23 Cool. Yeah. So the class we were in, it was from the modern mystery school. It was on self leadership. And I think everyone's going and had to say like a goal or an intention. And if, if I recall correctly, you said I, I want to share my voice. Yeah. Yeah, that was the big thing that came up for me. Yeah. And the first thing I wrote, even wrote in my notebook like, well, what does that mean? Like, is he a singer? Does he, like, you want to go in the math singer? Like what? What do you do with your voice that they even told you there? Like sharing your voice could be going to the street corner and yelling at people like so. So what does sharing your voice mean to you? It's funny, actually, just right now I'm remembering that in the class you had asked that question of like, well, it's a great, great vision and all that, but what does that actually mean?

3:06 What are you going to do? What does, what does that look like? And I as honestly didn't know I, I had sort of meditated on like a huge piece of my purpose a couple of months ago and got up this idea, this idea of like sharing my voice kept coming up. And I even took this Class A few years ago, back in 2021, I was starting a program at Tufts. And it was actually, it was an engineering program, but there was this offering of share your personal voice and it was a storytelling class with this, this instructor, Bob Ed Buster.

3:47 And it was such an amazing experience to like go in and do something that was not, you know, super related to engineering. We were talking about what we were doing, but it was really like, how do you engage people? How do you connect with people? How do you get them to see the wonder? And I, I did really well in the class. I really enjoyed it a lot. I thought it was of all the things I did, you know, all the engineering classes and everything. That was my favorite class I took. So still sort of figuring out like, I know I loved it. I can think back like that's the most valuable thing that I think I did at Tufts. But what does that look like? I don't know, like doing these podcasts is been like a lot of fun. You know, I started an Instagram, which made me very nervous.

4:35 I really don't like social media. Like haven't been big on it, but getting like great feedback from it. But also like I do like singing. So like maybe I'll join a a community choir or something. That's sort of so many aspects I could different ways I could go about it. Have you always had this desire to share your voice, or is it something that's new for you? That's a great question. I don't know. I mean, I think there's always been a piece of performing.

5:15 You know, I played music back when I was younger, like 4th grade through 8th grade, and I played drums and always enjoyed going in the concerts and getting the big old timpanis and drumming away on those. And I've also like talked a lot. I teach swimming, some lessons, I taught a few classes at the college level. I've also done like one-on-one tutoring. So like in that sense, there's sort of a sharing of the voice. Like I, I like, I like being up in front speaking. It's, it's as much as like I'm get very nervous doing it sometimes.

6:01 It's so invigorating to be able to, you know, have everyone looking at you and be like, oh, they care what I'm saying. Which not always, you know, sometimes there's someone that's falling asleep. But when you look at someone and their eyes are like, waiting for the next word, it's like, it's like someone sees you, you know, And I at least imagine most of us really want to be seen. Yeah. When, when you said that in class, well, first of all, you have a really great, deep sounding, excellent voice for, for radio word for voice overs, commercials, whatever it may be. And I was struck by how how confident and charismatic you were for someone that was saying, you know, or at least I, I, my assumption is someone saying, I want to share my voice. It implies that you're not doing anything right now, right? So maybe so it sounds like you've always been sharing your voice, but you just you're, you're feeling a calling to to elevate that even more.

7:00 Does that feel true? Yeah, yeah, I think that is true. It's like what? What is the next level of me? I mean, I think it's like a lot of stuff that and people that come to the mystery school are doing, like there's a lot of people that come in and do this spiritual work. They're like have really successful lives and want to step it up to the next level, like pass what they think was possible. So I think that's where I'm at. Yeah, cool. So, so you mentioned the mystery school where we're both initiates in the mystery school, which which starts with a healing called a life activation.

7:41 So what made you say yes or or look for a life activation back when you did it? Yeah, it's, it's funny 'cause I, I was going through this sort of debilitating back injury. I guess that part of it isn't funny, but the I was really struggling for years, 2020 through 2022 with this debilitating back injury. I was even stepping away from work and I remember in this struggle of pretty much just sitting around lying down, not waiting to get better, I reached out to one of my previous professors.

8:32 This he was a professor that I really cared a lot about. Like he was a very amazing mentor to me and both was very smart, studied in psychology, was very successful in the world of business and as well as academia, but also studied shamanism, was taught a shaman and studied with indigenous peoples around the world and actually had shamanistic training in one tribe. And he got me to sort of believe that there was something greater outside of, you know, here are the scientific principles like he had.

9:14 There is something about like, you know, when you find a mentor that you you trust so much in so many ways, and then they tell you something that pushes your boundaries. And it's sort of like, OK, I mean, you can't prove it to me, or at least you're not proving it to me. But I believe there's like, maybe there's something out there. Maybe I should open up my mind. You know, someone who's, who's in their 70s might know a little bit more than I do, might have seen a little bit more of the world than I have. So I reached out to him actually to sort of talk about like, I don't know what I'm going to do with my career. You know, I'm not, I'm having difficulty working because of my back pain. I don't know what I'm going to do next. I'm feeling like very hopeless. And in the back of my mind, I was really hoping that he would say, Jake, you need to go off and be a healer. Like you need to go off and do the spiritual journey and that's how you'll heal yourself.

10:10 That's what I wanted. And I was really disappointed to find that that's not what he said. You know, we he gave, he gave some really amazing advice, but that's like it. Well, part of it. I didn't ask for that. Like I didn't say to him, Hey, do you have any advice on your spiritual things I can do? But then a week later, I was talking to my chiropractor and I mentioned to him sort of this story like this. I had this professor and we talked a little about spiritual work in the past. And that's when this this chiropractor doctor Nick Penzarella mentioned we do a meditation with my wife. Maybe you could get something out of that. And it was with her that after the meditation, which was just so blissful, so peaceful and even relieved some of my pain, which was mind blowing.

11:07 She mentioned this like vaccination. And it was almost like I didn't realize it at the time, but in retrospect of wow, I was asking for something spiritual. Like I knew deep in my being that there there was something greater. Like this wasn't just physical pain, there was something there was a deeper layer. The physical pain was just, you know, a physical manifestation of imbalances that were going on in my life. I'm not feeling fulfilled in my career, having difficulty of regulating my emotions, my relationships with, you know, family and friends and the substances and all of that. So it was almost a a no brainer. Like, yeah, I was looking for relief with my back pain and trying to find more joy, but something deeper in the subconscious or even, you know, deeper than the subconscious, higher than the subconscious was saying you need to go off and heal yourself so you can help heal other people. Had you always had this yearning for spiritual growth and to be a healer?

12:09 Or again, it was this. More recent, definitely more recent. I think it really only came up sort of in college. I started College in 2017 and I think I was very stressed without realizing I was very stressed. I don't know if that's a common thing among people, but it was only later on in life that I realized how stressed I was all the time, to the point where I remember sitting, remember I was lying in in my childhood bed. I was home on vacation and I was watching on Netflix this food documentary. And there's one episode highlighting, you know, each chef that they were highlighting in a series. And this one chef, she was this Buddhist monk and was talking all about how like she didn't go off to, you know, become a Buddhist monk to become this crazy amazing chef that people are so excited to bring from around the world. But she went to sort of, she just felt called to this sort of spiritual lifestyle and her life became like very simple. And her cooking was reflected in that. It is very simple, like almost, you know, it's a negative comment connotation, but almost bland, like there, it wasn't very, if you've ever had any sort of Buddhist and inspired food, it's not going to blast you in the face with flavour because like that's not what they're going for. It's about Peace of Mind, quieting, having that calm, the quiet pond and her cooking

13:44 reflected that. And it was so amazing. I remember thinking like, wow, like I always been connected with food. My family is very connected with food. My sister went to culinary school. We like, love, love to eat. And it's like, this is a different way of being in this thing. I love food. And she's living in a different way than I have thought. Like right now I'm going to school for engineering, you know, working really hard, getting stressed about keeping my grades up. And I had this piece of what if I just did this instead? What if I went off and studied as a monk and helped, you know, helped people like relax, help them feel more connected with them, you know, feel less scared, less angry. So that I think that's where that first seed was planted. And it's sort of like, well, that's escaping from the world. And what I think I found, which was really amazing coming into the mystery school, as I've learned more, done more classes and more initiations and teachings, realizing what's really special is this is spiritual growth that is very much in the world.

14:55 Like only not everyone can go off and be a monk. The world wouldn't function if we if we all just put everything down and it went off and just meditated every day. But to find something where I could bring that peace into my life and then be surrounded by other people and help spread it to them, it feels like I've sort of found what I've been looking for and didn't realize I was looking for it. Yeah, that, that's a great way to put it. I, I, I, I get that. And I, I've heard it from many others in, in the school as well. So that, and I really agree that that's one of the things I like most about empower thyself. The, the, the tools that you're taught that that's the weekend long class that that makes you an initiate in the modern mystery school.

15:44 And it teaches you these tools that are really grounded and they can make changes in your life. They can really help you like manifest things and and create a life that you you want to live as opposed to kind of living on autopilot or just being reactionary to everything happening around you. So when did you become an initiative? When did you take that class? That was December 3rd and 4th of 20/22/20. 22 OK, cool. And you've gone further than that. You have become a healer, is that correct? Yeah, in May of 20, May of 2023, I went up to Toronto and I went to Healers Academy and it's the class where it's a week long learning how to do live activation.

16:32 So it's like that first healing that most people come to in the school. And it had such a profound effect for me. I sort of glossed over that, but it was, I think the easiest way to put is where I was before was I was pretty stagnant. Wasn't really, it's just really spending days lying in bed and waiting to heal from this back injury, but not really having hope and not really doing anything about it for myself, having other people help me. And I was also unsure about my career path. I, I didn't really feel joy in and I was very stressed about it was, you know, pursuing APHD and I had to step away.

17:19 And it was also a place like where I didn't have the best relationship with, you know, a lot of people in my life, like my family and friends. And I was very reliant on like substances like I would use like marijuana like all the time. So it would bring the joints of my life where after, after doing the life activation, things started to turn around. There is suddenly now I'm not waiting for someone to make me feel better. I'm going out and I'm pushing myself. I am, you know, finding a new, new practitioners that can help serve me, not putting up further things that that are that aren't bringing me the care and joy that I want. I'm starting to build better relationships with my family, with my friends, even like not, you know, cutting out like people are bad, but like spending time with people that I really feel like I want to be around. Stepping out of my career into which was really scary. And I for for years was saying like, I'm going to be an engineer, I'm going to be an engineer, I'm going to be an engineer and went to school for four years, started grad school, did that for a year, said I'm going to become an engineering professor now going to teach.

18:49 And then right before this, you know, big qualifying exam, the biggest deciding factor of essentially cementing myself in this path, deciding I'm going to step away. And later a few months later, August of 22, that when I'm looking at going back, deciding actually I don't enjoy this. I enjoy it within this box of biomedical engineering. This is the thing that I'm most excited about this particular field I was in and being able to teach and connect with people. But man, that was so limiting to put myself in that box.

19:32 It's like actually the parts I love the connecting with people, the guiding them towards living something more purposeful, feeling cared for. The teaching was something I can do in other places and find something else that I'm more passionate about. So all of these things changed with the life activation. So after I did Empower Thyself in December, it was I got this sort of download when I was meditating. It was. Almost no brainer. This is what you're going to do. You're going to go to Healer's Academy, you're going to learn how to do the life activation for other people.

20:14 It was I felt more purpose in my life in those like that's those six months following than I had any time before. Like before, it was like, this thing feels really good. It makes logical sense to do the PhD feels like I really enjoyed doing it, and I did really enjoy doing it, but never before have I been so sure of no. This is what I was like preparing to go to Healer's Academy doing prerequisite courses. It's like this actually all lines up with what I feel most joyful about, which is helping people to live their purpose, Helping other people to, you know, smile more as they work through their lives.

21:00 Yeah, when I, when I received my life activation, I was already working as an energy coach doing Akasha record readings. I studied Reiki and all sorts of other stuff. And, but halfway through it and it's, it's, it can be a 60 to 90 minute process. But halfway through my life activation, I remember saying to myself, I still don't know what this is, but I know I'm going to learn how to do this. And it was before I, I didn't know what Healers Academy was a thing, but I knew I was going to learn to do whatever this thing is. And it, it was true. So yeah, I had a complete career path from it. Change and even real Men feel came into existence one month, one month after my activation. I had this vague, I'm supposed to do something for men. But then after my life activation, oh, a podcast that that's simple.

21:45 Let's do that. And even the title Real Men feel all came after my activation. Someone asked me to speak about masculinity at a art gallery. I was like, sure. And then I'm like thinking, what if? What am I? What did I say yes to? What am I talking about? Why is this at an art gallery? And so one of the things I was playing with like real men this, real men that. And I just thought, well, what if real men feel? What if? What if men were praised and and thanked for crying in public or for laughing, for being joyous, not just being angry and hungry, which is kind of the two main things I see that are allowed for them. So that's really what you have to mean. That's why I asked, you know, did this wanting to elevate your voice and use it more, did that, did that shift after your activation or not?

22:28 And it in your first time, it didn't sound like it did. But in hindsight, it does sound like that you, you weren't really taking action. You're just waiting for others to kind of take care of you and heal you. And you've been taking more action since activation and initiation. Yeah, that's an interesting thing to think about, how that's related to my voice and sharing my voice because certainly, yeah, I take took way more actions and some of them were related to my voice. You know, part of what happened was I actually, I left Tufts where I was doing my PhD, and I ended up starting as a chiro, a chiropractic assistant. So I worked at my chiropractor's office just, you know, first checking people in, talking to people, making them feel comfortable, sort of like a receptionist role, which quickly evolved into a managerial role, like taking on, you know, managing care plans and working with insurance and more recently helping with marketing and things like that, which has been a very cool experience, very healing, amazing. Just like love people every day as a job. Like that's so awesome.

23:43 But shortly after I got that job, I also like heard this opportunity at Tufts where I left of they needed people to help teach. And that was the part that I love. That was why I was going to become a professor or why I was doing my PhD. It was to become a professor to teach. So I went back to my advisor and essentially pitched to him, Hey, I'm the person that can do this. Like hire me and I'll, I'll teach the heck out of these students. I and I'll have fun doing it and they'll have fun doing it and ended up making a course from scratch, which was such a rewarding experience. And a huge part of it was, and this is kind of meta, but it was sort of like teaching people to share their voice from that storytelling class that I took.

24:38 I, I integrated some of those lessons into this class and we ended up actually it was a design class where we talked about problems in a certain in the food space. It was a very food centered field that I was working in. And throughout the semester, students would take this design that they work worked on and start to pitch it. And we use storytelling techniques and workshop it in the class and people give feedback and I would give feedback and they'd sort of revise it and go again and talk about where people are engaged, where they're not engaged.

25:19 So it's definitely definitely sounds like it has helped me in that aspect of sharing my voice, but I didn't quite get the clarity on that's what I was doing until very recently. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I I get that completely. Jake, what are you proud of? What am I proud of? That's funny you ask that. I just finished A10 month program called Cabalo, which I'm sure you you're familiar with. Some listeners might not be, but this is a program in the mystery school which unlike a lot of the other programs and healings, which tend to be shorter, you know, anywhere from 2 hours to like a week long. This is, you know, like almost a year long program and part of that final integration was actually looking at some things in my life, like what are the fruits of my life? And, you know, I think I've listed a lot of the things that I'm really proud of, like those things that I like listed out to, you know, less than a week ago, about a week ago, I hit listed these out.

26:39 Like creating that class, something I was so proud of. It was such a culmination of so many different mentors that I had, you know, and 300 hours of work putting into this completely new thing that I was actually so scared to do. I was like, well, who am I? I, I'm just some guy who, you know, went to college, started a degree, didn't finish it, and now I'm supposed to teach people, some of whom like actually have higher degrees than I do like I've have like master's degrees or working on a master's degree. But it ended up being like so amazing. Like I got such amazing reviews from people were smiling, enjoying going to class. I heard like people who weren't in my class were telling me that they heard it was really awesome. That was really amazing.

27:31 I'm very proud of life activating 5 people since I learns to do life activation almost a little over a year ago. And so proud because of the changes I've seen. Like I had one person who, I mean it's such a multi dimensional change. So many things came about but like one thing that was very close to my heart was sort of drug use. Like I said, I was using marijuana for like pretty much habitually for five years and through the tools of the modern mystery school, I pretty much cut cold Turkey and not even because I was like, I, I need to stop and be restricted. I simply didn't want to anymore.

28:18 After my initiation in in December 22, I remember a few days later I was off of work and I when I took, took one hit of, of of a pipe and almost immediately, immediately realized I would prefer to be sober. And it was this stark change. It was like I didn't need to do anything. I had sort of lifted up. Like I was suddenly like, I was spending so much time plugging out of life. Let me, let me do some drugs, plug out of life and relax. And suddenly it was like, oh, actually, no, I want to plug in now because what I was plugged into is so much brighter. And one of the first person I live activated came to me and was talking about their experience using nicotine. And that was something they, one, didn't want to do, but two were very ashamed of.

29:18 Like, didn't want to be like a role model to like, like, to like, worked with, worked with kids and didn't want to be a bad role model to them. And like right after the live live activation, she said she stopped like completely. She tried like get similar experience. She tried once or twice and remember she was like, darn, this doesn't work anymore. Like I don't feel good after this. And to see that in other people, like, wow, that's so like this person recognized it was they were doing something that was incongruent with what their soul wanted. And to help them say, all right, I'm going to live by my soul now.

30:05 Just like I, I don't know if there's anything I can be more proud of than that. Oh, very cool. What's one thing that you wish more men knew? One thing that I wish more men knew, it's a tough one. I think partly because there's so much in our future now that I think is progressed, like in the consciousness I think people are seeing as men, it's way more appropriate to feel or way more accepted to feel. I think one of the things I struggled with was the sort of idea of I need to know the answer. I need to be like, right, sort of connected to that. And, you know, in negative ways, especially like in my, when I was in like high school that came out that manifested as like arrogance, be like, I need to be right. And, you know, people would definitely be like, yeah, Jake's just like an arrogant asshole.

31:32 Like, that's the manifestation of it. But like, the layer below is like, Jake's scared of being wrong. Because if Jake's wrong, does Jake have value? I I think that is a thing that a lot of men deal with. Yeah, something off and say is most men would rather be right than be happy. Yeah, yeah, and some. Sometimes life lines up and you could be right and happy, but if you insist on me, you're probably not going to be as happy. Yeah, absolutely. And, and is there a a habit or a book or a practice that has helped you that you could share?

32:19 How much time do you have? You know, I think the biggest thing is rituals, which I mean, that can be a really, that's a packed word right there, right? There's a lot that goes into that. And for anyone who's not familiar with like what we've talked about the mystery school, like there's, there's healings and there's initiations and there's other aspects as well, different classes and the first initiation doing empower thyself, a weekend course. And you have this initiation, which is in some ways I can, I can like relate it to a healing. And you know, my limited capacity of knowledge about how it really works in that a thing is done to you and you have this sort of inexplainable change.

33:14 For me, the most immediate was suddenly I didn't want to smoke weed. I didn't like it anymore. But then there's also these things that happen throughout the, you know, the whole 2 weeks, 2 days of class. And a lot of that is learning certain rituals, things you can do every day that bring more light into your life, whether it be very specific, manifesting certain things that you want or just helping to balance you, helping to heal you. That's been the most helpful for me. I've done them pretty much every day since since I took in power thyself and it's made such an amazing difference.

33:57 Just all my life how I hold myself. It's like when I get stressed, I don't need to think my way out of it. I have tools that can help agree grounds me. And as you know, as much as meditation is amazing and I do like love to meditate, I also have it's easy habit for me and I think for many people to fall off of like I was meditating every day for months. In the last two or three months, I pretty much only meditating classes. But you know, a ritual like you, you do rituals all the time. You brush your teeth in the morning, in the night. So how hard is it to throw on an extra 1? That was at least my experience with it. And suddenly things are just a lot brighter. Awesome.

34:43 Jake, is there anything you're looking forward to? Yeah, yes, Oh my gosh. And I have no idea what it is. Really. So if you have no idea what it is, how do you know you're looking forward to it? Oh man, cuz I know it's going to be amazing so. You just have you have a sense of coming amazingness. Yes, I I'm planning to, I don't know totally what my next, you know, he asked me where do I see myself in five years?

35:24 And as much as I would do terribly on a job interview if I said this, I have no idea. But I know a huge piece of what I need to do next is some exploration is stepping outside of my comfort zone. And whether that means moving somewhere else or just stepping into a new job or, you know, likely, likely both, I don't know what that's going to bring me. But I have this deep knowing that somewhere else out there, I have lessons to learn that are going to help me to serve in a higher capacity.

36:07 And I'm really excited to see what those are and how I change because of them. Awesome, Jake. Finally what? What's the best way for people to learn more about you or get in contact with you? Yeah, the absolute best way. Check out my website, jakemarco.com. It's Marco with AK, my Instagram, It's just Jake Marco healing and just reach out through those avenues and we can get, you know, you can see sort of what I've been talking about through the Instagram and on the website. And then there's also avenues to just find the time to talk because there's no like cookie cutter. This is what I do because it really depends on you, right? It's very personal to find out what your purpose is, What are the things that are blocking you? And for me, that's the most exciting thing, is to be able to listen, like be that year that people are often looking for. Well, Jake, it was awesome to get to know you a little more and I too look forward to what amazing things come your way and that you create coming in coming months and years. Thanks again for joining us.

37:30 Thanks for sharing your voice and your experiences, especially with with the mystery school and and everything else that you've been up to and growing and learning from. Thank you everyone listening for joining us today, listening, tuning in. Please visit realmenfeel.org and see the blog post for this episode. We'll have all the links to various things and resources mentioned. Wherever you're discovering real men feel, whatever platform that is, please do all the things you can do. Post, review, subscribe, share with somebody, give a review, whatever you can do. You can always reach out to me directly at realmenfeel@gmail.com. And if you'd like to explore a conversation with me, not a recorded show, but an actual conversation to how your life can improve, visit theandygrant.com/talk. Until next time, be good to yourself.