The ManKind Podcast

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What if your organization isn't a machine but a living thing?

In this episode, Boysen Hodgson sits down with Norman Wolfe, founder and CEO of Quantum Leaders Inc., former Hewlett-Packard executive, ManKind Project brother, and co-author with his wife Jane Wolfe of the Living Organization trilogy. Norman's leadership journey started with a first performance review that said "unacceptable" in every category. Four decades later, he helps CEOs close the gap between strategy and execution by paying attention to what most leaders can't see.

Norman lays out the three forces that drive results for people and organizations: activity, relationship, and context. He explains why context, the meaning we make, is the leader's most powerful point of leverage. He and Boysen talk about moving leadership from plan, organize, lead, and control to set context, develop people, build community, and be of service. They also cover why training alone rarely changes behavior, and how organizations can carry trauma from years of treating people as parts.

Norman walks through the six skills from his new book, Leading the Living Organization: heart centering, heart-centered communication, reframing context, improv mindset, balancing opposites, and coaching and developing. He closes with something personal: what three marriages taught him, and how he and Jane learned to make decisions for the "us" they created together.

If you lead a team, work inside an organization, or just want to show up more whole with the people around you, this conversation is a humane, practical way to rethink leadership.

In this episode:

• The failed first review that started Norman's leadership journey
• Activity, relationship, and context: the hidden forces behind results
• Why "people are our most important asset" misses the point
• Committed vs. compliant: what changes engagement
• The six skills of leading a living organization
• "What would you do if you sat in my seat?"
• Merlin: the name Norman and Jane gave their relationship

Resources:

• Leading the Living Organization by Norman & Jane Wolfe: [BOOK LINK]
• Quantum Leaders Inc.: [WEBSITE LINK]

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Three years ago Brandon signed up for Men and Women of Discomfort, made it two weeks, and quietly bowed out. This year, after a small plane lost an engine at 150 feet with him and his wife aboard, after a dire diagnosis for someone close to him, and after a fourth straight physical showing high cholesterol and low testosterone, he called Dane Sanders and said I'm in. This episode is the after shot. Dane flips the mic and interviews Brandon at week 12 about what actually happened, including the week his infant son was rushed to the PICU and the training got tested in the most real way imaginable.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

• Why the bison runs toward the storm while everything else runs away, and the two reasons that instinct pays off
• The victim-choice and hard-easy quadrant that explains why most men medicate storms with cheap comforts instead of piercing through them
• What the fess-up practice looks like inside MWOD, and why no one in the program made Brandon feel worse than he made himself
• How the practices held Brandon anchored through four days in the PICU, right down to ordering compliant food from a hospital menu while holding his son's hand
• The feedback from a fellow member named Wendy that ended Brandon's complaining in one sentence
• What changed at home when his wife watched him finish something for the first time, and why that rewrite of an old narrative mattered more than the 10 pounds and 6 percent body fat

The next round kicks off Monday, October 5. If this pierces you, apply. If it doesn't, it's probably not for you. New rounds start every quarter. 

Resources Mentioned:

• Men and Women of Discomfort, apply here — https://mwod.io/apply
• The Gap and The Gain by Dan Sullivan & Dr. Benjamin Hardy — https://www.amazon.com/Gap-Gain-Achievers-Happiness-Confidence/dp/1401964362
• Become a Beacon (Brandon's coaching cohort) — https://www.becomeabeacon.com
• Previous episodes with Dane Sanders — ManKind Podcast Ep. 046 and the earlier MWOD conversation

Previous Episodes With Dane Sanders

- 256 - The 90-Day Practice That Turns Comfort-Addicted Men Into Men With Agency

- 46 - Why Men Should Choose Discomfort

Hearing the call? We're here. https://mkpusa.org

BetterHelp: Get 10% Off Your First Month Of Therapy
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Most of us were handed one of two scripts: the "because I said so" dad with all structure and no warmth, or the gentle parent with all warmth and no structure. Both leave kids without what they actually need. Pat Barber spent 22 years as a CrossFit coach, won his region in 2011, and taught seminars on four continents. Then he turned that same method of relentless self-examination onto fatherhood. Thirteen years and four sons later, he runs The Fathers Guild, and this conversation lays out what he's learned.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

• The four parenting quadrants (neglectful, permissive, authoritarian, authoritative) and why most dads bounce between the two extremes without realizing it
• Why "gentle parenting" as most people practice it is actually permissive parenting, and what the research-backed version really looks like
• Why parenting tactics don't change long-term outcomes for kids, and the one thing that does: who you are and the environment you create
• The real definition of a boundary: it's not what your kid can't do, it's what you will do when they do it
• The $5 yelling challenge Pat used to break a lifelong pattern of reactivity in a single month
• How The Fathers Guild uses monthly challenges, weekly Monday Ledger check-ins, and scored accountability to help dads grow the way athletes do

If you're buried and don't know where to start: pick one thing, try it for a month, and get some men around you while you do it.

Resources Mentioned:

• The Fathers Guild — https://thefathersguild.com
• Jamie Glowacki (parenting educator, boundaries framework) — https://www.jamieglowacki.com
• The Gottman Institute (repair after conflict) — https://www.gottman.com
• Men and Women of Discomfort (MWOD) — https://mwod.io

Hearing the call? We're here. https://mkpusa.org

BetterHelp: Get 10% Off Your First Month Of Therapy
The ManKind Podcast has partnered with Betterhelp to make it easier for listeners to access licensed mental health therapists who can aid them in their mental health journey. Brandon and Boysen stand by this service as they use BetterHelp for their therapy needs.
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The US military does an incredible job of creating warriors and a horrible job of bringing them home. Jere Hartman lived that truth. After leaving the 75th Ranger Regiment, he chased the career ladder at the FBI, hit 240 pounds, and looked in the mirror at a miserable man achieving goals that weren't his. So he quit, thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, and then said yes to something drastic: rowing 2,800 miles across the Pacific Ocean with a crew of veterans. Thirty-five days at sea. No way out. No way to hide. Out there, he found what had been missing since the day he took off the uniform.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

• Why almost every warrior culture in history had a ritual for bringing soldiers home — and what happens when ours doesn't
• The night Jere thought he was having a heart attack 300 miles from shore, and how surrendering to it changed how he expresses himself forever
• Why the brotherhood on the boat formed between men who couldn't stand each other on land — and what that reveals about how male bonds are actually built
• The formula behind Courser Racing's model: hardship, brotherhood, no exit
• Jere's honest minimum dose for the 38-year-old with a mortgage and three kids who can't row an ocean — and why it starts with something you loved 20 years ago
• What happened when one crew member reached Hawaii, proposed to his wife again, and rebuilt his relationship with his kids and grandkids

Follow the crew as they train to cross the Atlantic — La Gomera, Spain to Antigua, 3,000 miles, departing December 2027.

Resources Mentioned:

• Courser Racing — https://www.courserracing.org
• Courser Racing Weekend & Week-Long Rows — https://www.courserracing.org/services
• The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter — https://www.amazon.com/Comfort-Crisis-Embrace-Discomfort-Reclaim/dp/0593138762
• World's Toughest Row (the race Jere's crew completed) — https://www.worldstoughestrow.com
• Appalachian Trail Conservancy — https://appalachiantrail.org

Hearing the call? We're here. https://mkpusa.org

BetterHelp: Get 10% Off Your First Month Of Therapy
The ManKind Podcast has partnered with Betterhelp to make it easier for listeners to access licensed mental health therapists who can aid them in their mental health journey. Brandon and Boysen stand by this service as they use BetterHelp for their therapy needs.
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The world lost Dolly Parton this week — and you might be wondering what a men's podcast has to say about it. Everything. Because underneath the rhinestones, the hair, and the persona was a masterclass in things most men spend their whole lives trying to learn: naked ambition without arrogance, humility without self-erasure, principled stands without endless conflict, and wearing a mask consciously instead of being worn by it. Brandon and co-host Boysen Hodgson sit down days after her passing to unpack 80 years of legacy.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

• How Dolly held her brutal childhood — hunger, field work, 12 kids in a two-room cabin — without sugarcoating it or being defined by it
• Why she stated her ambition out loud, went for it, got it, and never once hedged with fake humility — and what that models for men who minimize their own wins
• The difference between persona and person: how Dolly consciously wore the mask instead of letting the mask wear her
• How she handled manufactured beefs — turning Whitney Houston's cover royalties into "The House That Whitney Built" for Nashville residents
• Why she took principled stands in a single sentence and moved on, never getting trapped in the outrage cycle
• What eldership actually means — and how Dolly embodied the convener, welcomer, and validator role her entire life

Sign a child in your life up for the Imagination Library. It's free, and it's the best way to honor her.

Resources Mentioned:

• Dolly Parton's Imagination Library (free book a month, birth to age 5) — https://imaginationlibrary.com
• Dollywood — https://www.dollywood.com
• The Dollywood Foundation — https://dollywoodfoundation.org

Hearing the call? We're here. https://mkpusa.org

BetterHelp: Get 10% Off Your First Month Of Therapy
The ManKind Podcast has partnered with Betterhelp to make it easier for listeners to access licensed mental health therapists who can aid them in their mental health journey. Brandon and Boysen stand by this service as they use BetterHelp for their therapy needs.
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Most men have zero foxhole buddies. Not because they don't want them — but because they keep choosing comfort over the risk of being truly known. Nick Papadopoulos has spent 23 years building men's groups, and Jake Fishbein has spent the last decade inside them. Together they've written a novel about what it actually looks like when men stop spectating and enter the arena. It became an Amazon bestseller. This conversation is the unfiltered backstory.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

• Why the "I'm too busy" excuse is almost always a lie men tell themselves — and what it's actually protecting
• What it means to be a foxhole buddy versus a fair-weather friend, and how to build those relationships before the 3AM crisis call
• How the Arena Men's Group model identifies the exact moment a man is about to leave his own growth — and what to do about it
• Why being in a men's group on Monday doesn't mean you're in the arena on Tuesday — the real measure of the work
• What Nick's 50-year friendship taught him about how deep a single conversation can go when men finally get honest
• Why the work you do in a men's circle doesn't stop at you — and why your wife is probably your men's group's biggest fan

Grab the book, find your foxhole, and stop being a spectator in your own life.

Resources Mentioned:

• The Men's Group: A Novel of Messy Friendships by Nick Papadopoulos & Jake Fishbein — https://a.co/d/0051GHKs (also available at bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Target)

Hearing the call? We're here. https://mkpusa.org

BetterHelp: Get 10% Off Your First Month Of Therapy
The ManKind Podcast has partnered with Betterhelp to make it easier for listeners to access licensed mental health therapists who can aid them in their mental health journey. Brandon and Boysen stand by this service as they use BetterHelp for their therapy needs.
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There's a wound most men carry and rarely name: the father wound. In this episode, Boysen sits down with Ian Schwartz and John Harrington — co-founders of the Intentional Fathers Initiative — to talk about why intentional fathering isn't just good parenting advice, it's how generational wounds actually get healed.

Ian and John build what they call "father-focused men's work" — spaces where men bring their real challenges as fathers into the container of men's work: naming the father wound directly, examining what was passed down, and choosing, on purpose, what to carry forward and what to leave behind. They talk about violence in its many forms, including the quiet kind — a father who's present in body but absent everywhere that matters. They break down the four pillars of men's work (accountability, integrity, vulnerability, authenticity) applied to fatherhood, and make the case that self-care isn't optional — it's what makes healing possible at all.

If you're carrying a father wound, raising kids of your own, or both — this conversation offers a real path forward, not just a reframe.

Learn more about their work at the Intentional Fathers Initiative 

Hearing the call? We're here. https://mkpusa.org

BetterHelp: Get 10% Off Your First Month Of Therapy
The ManKind Podcast has partnered with Betterhelp to make it easier for listeners to access licensed mental health therapists who can aid them in their mental health journey. Brandon and Boysen stand by this service as they use BetterHelp for their therapy needs.
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Toby Sola has spent two decades teaching meditation — years of it inside a monastery, refined through close work with world-renowned teacher Shinzen Young. Today he runs Bright Mind, an app built on one guiding principle: as simple as possible, but no simpler.

In this conversation, Toby and Boysen talk about what monastic life actually teaches you — not mystical secrets, but community and humility, the two things that turned out to matter most. They dig into why so many men try meditation once, get frustrated with their own "monkey mind," and never come back — and what's usually missing (hint: it's often not more discipline, it's community and structure). Toby walks through how Bright Mind is designed as a guided journey rather than a random library, so progress actually builds instead of resetting every time you open the app.

The conversation goes deep into the parts of practice nobody warns you about: the doubt that shows up right when things start to open up, the strange sense of space and time dissolving, and the nihilism that can surface when you get quiet enough to really look. Toby's take is grounded and useful — sometimes the answer isn't more meditation, it's fixing something in your actual life: a relationship, a career decision, a worldview you're ready to let go of.

Whether you've never meditated or you've been sitting for years, this episode offers a clear, unpretentious map for a practice that's often made either too complicated or too watered down to matter.

Go to the Brightmind App - https://www.brightmind.com/

Use Code MKP to get a free month! 

Hearing the call? We're here. https://mkpusa.org

BetterHelp: Get 10% Off Your First Month Of Therapy
The ManKind Podcast has partnered with Betterhelp to make it easier for listeners to access licensed mental health therapists who can aid them in their mental health journey. Brandon and Boysen stand by this service as they use BetterHelp for their therapy needs.
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The strongest communities aren't built by treating everyone the same—they're built by making sure everyone belongs.

In this heartfelt and often humorous conversation, Boysen Hodgson sits down with leaders of the ManKind Project's Barrier Free Movement to explore what authentic inclusion really looks like.

FULL TRANSCRIPT Available HERE.

Art Patterson, Dee Spitler, Mike Merino, Paul Jerde, Craig Tennant, and Marc Sage share deeply personal stories about disability, neurodivergence, recovery, leadership, and the transformative power of being fully seen.

Together they discuss:

•  Why accessibility is about belonging—not accommodation 
•  How slowing down creates deeper connection 
•  The importance of asking instead of assuming 
•  Invisible disabilities and neurodivergence in men's work 
•  Building trust with men who have learned to expect exclusion 
•  Why every man is only "temporarily able" 
•  How humor, vulnerability, and honest conversation create true brotherhood 

Whether you're involved in men's work or simply want to become a more compassionate leader, this episode offers practical wisdom about creating spaces where everyone can show up exactly as they are.

Learn more: https://barrierfree.mkpusa.org/

Hearing the call? We're here. https://mkpusa.org

BetterHelp: Get 10% Off Your First Month Of Therapy
The ManKind Podcast has partnered with Betterhelp to make it easier for listeners to access licensed mental health therapists who can aid them in their mental health journey. Brandon and Boysen stand by this service as they use BetterHelp for their therapy needs.
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What if healing doesn't begin by becoming someone new—but by remembering who you've always been?

In this episode of the ManKind Podcast, Boysen sits down with CJ Goulding, co-founder of Boys in the Wood, an organization using nature, brotherhood, and community to support the mental health and wellbeing of Black men.

CJ shares the personal story that led him from outdoor education to creating transformative retreats where men reconnect with themselves, each other, and the natural world. Together they explore how vulnerability grows in the right environment, why community is essential to healing, and how challenging outdated stories of masculinity opens the door to a more connected and courageous life.

They also discuss the role of nature in emotional wellbeing, the importance of mutual aid and collective care, the power of authentic leadership, and why sharing power doesn't diminish us—it multiplies what becomes possible.

Whether you're looking for deeper brotherhood, healthier masculinity, or simply a reminder that you don't have to carry everything alone, this conversation offers both hope and practical wisdom.

In this episode you'll hear:

• Why nature helps men reconnect with themselves

• The story behind Boys in the Wood

• How vulnerability becomes possible inside trusted communities

• Why "remember who you are" is more than a metaphor

• The surprising ways joy shows up when men feel safe

• How healing one man strengthens an entire community

• Why power grows when it's shared

Learn more about Boyz n the Wood - https://www.boyznthewood.org/ 

Hearing the call? We're here. https://mkpusa.org

BetterHelp: Get 10% Off Your First Month Of Therapy
The ManKind Podcast has partnered with Betterhelp to make it easier for listeners to access licensed mental health therapists who can aid them in their mental health journey. Brandon and Boysen stand by this service as they use BetterHelp for their therapy needs.
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