Arne Rubinstein, Rites of Passage Institute: The importance of healthy rites of passage and transitioning from boyhood to manhood

CEO wisdom podcast With Honor Dr honor Rubenstein today with us uh I've been quite honored to speak to honor so far he's the CEO of the rights passage Rites of Passage Institute he's basically turning boys into men and that has been one of my favorite topics lately honor is visiting Oaxaca pretty soon where I'm from We're physically gonna meet and I have a very good energy flow

with honor I think he's living a life that could be ideal into my eyes uh for example he just came back from surfing today he met with another successful CEO in the same field as him and I think this is going to be a hell of a of an episode uh so Dr Rubenstein can you introduce yourself tell us a bit more about the rights of Passage Institute you're happy to and thank you Charles for having me on your podcast very happy to be here uh I am 59 years old I'm a father of two uh young men I have a few step children and a bunch of adopted children so quite a big spread out family and I yes I am the CEO and founder of the rights of Passage Institute but before that

I was actually a doctor first I did 10 years in family medicine and then 15 years in emergency medicine and one of the things that I really saw was that um I basically came to the conclusion that the young people are trying to create their own rights of passive they're trying to create their own initiations and especially when I was in emergency medicine I would see so

many uh young boys and girls or teenage boys and girls who had done something in their cars or in a fight or in drug taking drugs or pregnancies or all sorts of things and I realized that you know they were trying to do the things of adults but without any boundaries or understanding or support or supervision and I worked out you know over a long period of

time that they were trying to trying to create their own rite of passage and that every young person boy or girl is going to go through a rite of passage just as we did and that really the question is are they going to create their own or can we create something that's healthy and positive for them because I know that when they create their own or when

their peers created for them there is a significant risk that it could have disastrous lifelong consequences so that's sort of a an introduction as to why I got into this work I'm quite big on some contrarian problems that are not often mentioned in the media and one of them for example is porn another is this information with big media and another one is the lack of leadership

and Leadership could be somewhat synonym with testosterone and being a man some people when I I think the right words I shouldn't use the term man up I use it sometimes unfortunately in my team with some of my employees I think what I mean is like mature up so mad up could be the the better term there but why why do I think that this is a problem in our society what why are I mean there's a bunch of other problems that this world is facing um but when I look at for example Putin and the Russian war you can certainly see a little boy in this man's body that's trying to prove something to the world so so tell us about that fundamental problem you saw it in the emergency room but do you

also believe this is a cause of this world not advancing as much as much as it could uh nowadays in all modern times yeah look I'll I'll go back a little bit I saw I could see there was a problem at first I didn't know what it was and then I related it back to my life and my period when I was a teenager and also seeing how uh that that what I did in it as a teenager affected me through my life and that even when I was in my 20s and had two children I was still in that teenager way of thinking and so I had a young wife and I had a one-year-old and a three-year-old and they were both in nappies and you know my wife would be at home looking

after them and I was off working and on the way home if I wanted to go to the gym or visit someone I could do it um and then when when I was 27 my wife who was uh from actually from Canada we for whatever reasons we separated and she went back to Canada and left me with a one-year-old and a three-year-old in nappies and that was when I had to grow up that's when I had to for the first time in my life put someone else's needs in front of my own and that was a big shock and that was a an incredibly challenging but also very beautiful time just having that you know one-on-one needing to look after my two boys and that sort of changed my entire life and um I I

was working in emergency then and I was seeing all these young people coming in as I mentioned earlier and and not only boys boys and girls um and and I saw how often alcohol or drugs was involved and um you know I I saw many many girls who unfortunately had um you know well just name it lost their virginity while they'd been drunk to someone who they

hardly knew and that they were going to regret that for the rest of their lives um and and so the first thing was identifying the problem and then actually I got involved in some men's work I went away on a men's Retreat for four days and that was significant for me because there were nearly a hundred men there and I was astonished that all the men seemed

to be dealing with the same five issues and every man had three four or five of those issues including me and the the first issue was unresolved stuff with their own fathers that was the number one you know their fathers had never accepted them or acknowledged them or told them they'd love them and that they were all these men and even older men you know still trying

to prove something to a father even if that father had been dead for 20 years and in their strive for success and acknowledgment they would often sort of abandon their own families to try and get that so that was the number one yeah stuff with their fathers the second issue I saw the men struggling with is um was is what am I doing with my life you know what am I here what am I supposed to be doing and if there's one thing I know what I'm currently doing is what I'm supposed to be doing not what I want to be doing the job the lifestyle the you know that's I'm on the wrong train but I don't know how to get off the train and I don't even know which train I should be

on so that was the second thing the third is even though I'm in a man's body I still feel like a boy so when am I gonna really feel like I am a man that was a big one the fourth one was how in the world do I be in a healthy relationship I never got taught to be how to be in a relationship the role modeling wasn't great I have no mentoring around it how what what does it mean to be in a healthier relationship and then the fifth one I saw the men struggling with were was if I'm a father how do I be a good father what's it actually mean to be a good father so all the men had that dealing with their own fathers what am I supposed to do

with my life when am I going to feel like a man how do I be in a relationship in a good way and how do I be a good father and someone said you know imagine if there'd been something for us when we were teenagers around all of this Our Lives could have been very different and it was the first time I heard about Rites of Passage or someone mentioned the word Rites of Passage and I became very interested in the work and actually not long after this men's program they decided to put on a program for boys and men and and we ran and I got invited to help run that and we took 27 boys and some of them came with their fathers and some came with mentors or family friends and we

took 27 men and boys out in the bush for three days and three nights and something happened something profound happened and and after that I started studying rights of Passage all over the world and what I was astonished to find was that every traditional and Indigenous Community would have created a rite of passage for their boys as they were becoming young men and for their girls as

they were becoming young women and what really interested me is that they all would do it in basically the same way they would have the same stages and then within those stages they would have the same elements um and it would vary the the way it was presented would vary depending on what part of the world it was in but it would still actually fundamentally be the

same thing and so I was like okay well if they all did it and they all did the same way if we understand those stages and elements we could do that now in a modern context appropriate for this community so I started running some rights of Passage and this is like 30 years ago in the area where I lived and taking boys and men out on programs and and you know I just knew this is what I'm supposed to be doing so I ended up leaving my medical practice and moving full time into this work and I still say I'm a doctor except now instead of doing Curative medicine in the in the uh in the system I now do preventative medicine out of the system which I I much prefer and we do it

for boys and girls and our thing is about you know can we bring rights of Passage back into the mainstream again can we get to a point where every boy and girl has an opportunity to go through a healthy rite of passage because as I've already said you know they're all going to go through one but most of the ones that I saw people going through and that I went through myself were really sort of traumatic and not ideal and and uh and then if I can keep going that if we look at that fundamental shift from boy to young man guilt a young child to adult that they're why is that even so important and I actually wrote a model nearly 30 years ago about the difference between boy Behavior and healthy man behavior

uh which has now been extended to girl Behavior woman Behavior child adult but if we look at the boy man because it's such a beautiful way of understanding it boy behavior is what we typically see in a six to ten year old boy so boy behavior is I'm the center of the universe you know look at me look at me I want acknowledgment uh boy just wants power as much power as you can get a boy doesn't take any responsibility for his actions if something bad happens it was someone else's fault um a boy can't control his emotions if he doesn't get what he wants he has a temper tantrum you know I saw a kid yesterday in the supermarket screaming and screaming you know you could hear him from the other side of the

supermarket and he's going I want a lollipop you know he wanted a candy and and you know it was kind of cute because he's four years old and he's saying mommy mommy I hate you I hate you you're the worst mommy in the world I want a lollipop and I was you know but that's a four-year-old um uh boy behavior is I'm gonna live forever and the final one of boy behavior is a boy wants a mother a boy wants a mother to do everything for him to be basically be servant tell him how wonderful he is know everything about him and and that and that's boy Behavior now in a six to ten year old four to ten year old that's actually normal it is normal but if that never gets shifted and we

end up with 30 year olds 40 year olds 50 year olds world leaders who still think they're the center of the universe who still just want more and more power who still think they're going to live forever you know who still who can't handle their emotions so if a boy has a temper tantrum because he doesn't get a lollipop that's one thing but if a grown man

has a temper Tantra when he doesn't get his lollipop that's actually domestic violence and that's a big issue uh and you know if if a grown man um uh thinks he's going to live forever and and wants a mother instead of actually relationship which is what we are seeing more and more you can see how a lot of the I believe the problems that we see are because we actually still have an adolescent Society and the traditional communities recognize we can't have children running our communities or to be a disaster if we do those children will just take and take and take they'll use up all the resources they won't think about the future they'll just think about themselves you know they'll fight each other they'll do all the things that we're seeing in the

world so so the model of healthy man behavior is I'm not the center of the universe I'm part of a community and my actions affect others and I need to know that man behavior is not about having more power for me man behavior is if I have more power that actually means I can do more good in the community man behavior is uh you know have to be out of stand with my emotions I'm allowed to be be angry or upset but I'm not allowed to abuse or verbally physically threaten people that's not okay man behavior healthy man behavior is knowing that one day I'm gonna die and that affects how I live my life and it's not about having a mother it's about actually looking for genuine relationships whether you know whoever I'm with

and that's a big difference and if you think about it you know if we had a society if we had you know if men you know were actually men rather than boys and you know if there are any women listening to this podcast and hopefully there are a lot and I would ask the women who are listening the question do you know any men who still act as boys thinking they're the center of the universe want Power don't take responsibility for their actions you know can't handle their emotions you know and are looking for a mother a lot of women will know exactly what I'm talking about wow a lot still in fact I could somewhat identify myself in some of these behaviors which is interesting the living for everything is quite interesting because I've

had an obsession with longevity for quite a while and I really don't intend to Die the power thing I intend to amass power and use it for good so that's also like a weird um theory that I have it's not just power for the the sake of power and to me the definition of being a man is is kind of being a leader going at Hunt and bringing back the goods to the community and sacrificing yourself indeed there's this accountability in there but yeah it's kind of this prehistoric definition you know of go getting something bringing it back to the house and feeding the whole Community what what you have to think about these points sure look I mean um the first thing I'd say is one of the big difference between being a boy

and a man is we have more awareness so so I know I can be in all of those boy behaviors and I can be in all of the man behaviors but but as a man I have awareness and more and more I know when I'm being a boy I know when I'm wanting my partner to be my mother rather than in real relationship I I know when I'm just thinking about myself and because of awareness it gives us choice so my aim is to be spending more time in the man behavior and less time in the boy behavior and it doesn't mean I can't have fun and I can't laugh and I can't be silly but it's about knowing when it's okay to have fun and laugh and be silly and when I actually need

in a serious situation to be really focused and present and you know doing what needs to be done um you know look they're living forever thing that's that's that's a whole really interesting discussion as well and I don't know if we want to go into there right now I can but um for me yeah it's about living well um and yeah as a 59 year old man entering elderhood and the grand prize at the end of elderhood is death I I I I look at death in a different way now than I would have looked at death when I was 20 30 or 40.

right yeah and I mean okay I'm gonna say something weird here but if there is such a thing as AGI and general artificial intelligence I think past future and presence are cracked meaning that immortality is already cracked and there's no really such thing as death um I talked about that on a pod yesterday and I mean there's various philosophical uh definitions of that and we could get

into Consciousness no need to do that today um but to your point I think that when we see yellow haired world leaders getting at the top and trying to even get more resources than what they already had when they probably have a thousand acts of what they they really need and they're still striving for power and trying to reach something that we they will never be able

to reach um and constantly not being happy with their current lives that is the problem that is one thing you studied these incredibly powerful men and I've sort of done my own personal resource research on it that not every one of them but many many of them if you look at the relationship they had with their own father you'll see that there there's there's an issue there

and that's just not having been acknowledged not having been accepted you know there will be something in their past very often that was never dealt with and so now unconsciously they are trying to resolve something but because it's unconscious it's it's an insatiable need and so yes of course they're just going to be wanting more power more personal you know everything how can they get more conscious

well at this stage is it like something okay already solidified in their brain and really hard to break there's a yes and a no if we look if we look at the stages of a rite of passage there are three key stages of a writer passage the first is separation so you have to take him away from their day-to-day environment you can't do a rite of passage uh you know when a person's at home at work at school have to take them away so and and this would apply to any you know man woman person you can actually the first is to genuinely separate them from their day-to-day environment and you go into what's called a container a place where you don't have your phone you don't have contact so it goes into a place

of self-reflection the second thing I would do is actually get people just sharing their story looking at the and you know ideally going to a vulnerable place you get people in a circle and and not because I've done it ten thousand times and ask them to share about what their life was like when they were 14 15 16 what was it like at home what was their

relationship like with their father their mother um particularly their father to be honest but also mothers and all of a sudden these people you know no matter how powerful they are no matter how much money they've got no matter you know if you create an environment where they'll genuinely share all of a sudden it opens up a whole nother world of what's actually going on here you

know because it's it's those events and that those relationships we have before we're sort of 15 16 17 that shape the rest of our lives so we actually need to go back to that place and look at you know what what what what do you what do I believe now that I believe then but it's it's no longer relevant you know um if my father told me I would I wasn't good enough or I'd never be good enough and my father's been dead for 30 years and here I am the you know hugely successful something or other I don't need to run around believing that I'll never be good enough you know this is actually a time for me to stop and look at what I actually have done and who I actually am so

that that's the right of passage model and and if I just go through the three stages the first stage is separation the second stage is a transformation where we change because that's what we're interested in how do you transform because if you don't transform nothing changes and the third stage is integration back into the community in a different place so you know I look at life it's

like a staircase and we're moving up the staircase and each step is a different stage in life and traditionally Rites of Passage were used to move us from one step to the next and those ropes of Passage would be created by the community or sometimes life creates them so if we get married if we have a child if someone close to us dies if we have a a serious illness a big accident all of those are Tran uh they're a rite of passage that move us from one stage to the next the the ones that life create are often not facilitated and managed so they may or may not have a good outcome um or we can have facilitated rights of Passage that help us to move which ideally do have a good outcome so

we have to go through this trend we're talking about a transformation and we will go through transformations in life and the big thing that will transform is our belief systems it's how we view life it's our it's our underlying subconscious beliefs and values so you have a set of beliefs and values Charles they are in your subconscious and they run your life they they decide everything you

do they decide who you spend time talking to you to what work you do what exercise you do what food you eat what relationship you're in what movies you go and see all of those things now if you look at your subconscious when you were six years old it would be different from what it is now so at six years old you possibly wanted to spend all your time with your mum preferably or your dad or something and very possibly you know cartoons and and particular movies were your favorite and you would like to have eaten a lot of sweet things and you know play was really important now at nearly 30 you've got a different set of beliefs and values that drive what you do and for me at nearly 60 I have a

different set of beliefs and values again and my father at 93 he has a different set of beliefs and values so so what is changing is something in our psyche does that make sense makes a lot of sense um and and so what are that so the the big thing is what are the elements that have to be in the transformational stage for this for you know for an actual transformation to occur and that they are the that's what I've studied and that's what I uh teach and talk about and that's what my real interest is the the key elements there right the mental model that I had while listening to is kind of the base of my brain you know it's kind of uh the underlying Iceberg yeah which uh is it from a

chronological uh point of view is it that the brain was forming during these times and it's really hard to go back and kind of separate or dissipate the connections that were made on my side I've done a lot of Journeys and always had spirituality at the back of my mind I think a lot of business people do not give even one second of attention to these kinds

of things you know it's kind of Mr T mentioning that he doesn't work out on a daily basis because all the energy spend doing business um the the question I had is like why are these people elected uh or why do for example women choose this type of man that has a facade and just today I wrote something in business you know there's a lot of vanity I see a lot of my competitors um claiming to be something and with time I just see the The Fog dissipating and I I see the the vanity dissipating and I see the real thing that they're doing and that it doesn't scale you know they're all about short term so is there a cover-up in these men's do they compensate with what they're not with like persuasion and

fakeness of course of course they do so there are there are two there are two if we're going to use the iceberg model there are two key things that shape what is contained in our Iceberg what's the part below the ocean that you don't see this so there are two things that are to things that mix in together the first is just the natural stages of life

so a baby naturally thinks differently to a child who naturally thinks differently to a teenager who's starting to switch onto the world and sexuality and everything and that teenager naturally thinks differently to you know someone who's a parent with their own children and and a grandparent and an adult so that's the first but the second that comes into that is the events that happen to that person

along the way so you know if I'm a if I'm a a child or a teenager and someone says something to me good or bad that can get into my psyche my Iceberg someone might say to me oh you'll never be any good and I believe it or someone might say to me oh you're ugly and I'll believe it or something I might say to me you can do anything you want if you try hard enough and I'll believe it or they may say to me um you know you're a really good beautiful kind person and I'll believe it so so all of that stuff is also in my below the surface and unfortunately a lot of the things that get said or that get taken in are not the really good ones so we've

got that mix we've got the actual you know age and Stage mixed in with the events or you know a person gets abused when they're a child and often they'll believe it's their fault and that abuse will affect how they act for the rest of their lives and it can come out in really really unhealthy ways so there's all of those things mixed in so when you do a Rite of Passage in that transformation stage something really interesting happens and you call it an iceberg I'd rather call it a box if you don't mind a box which contains all of our beliefs and values and in a rite of passage in that transformation stage this box which is normally closed actually opens and some we can move some of our beliefs and values or we

can even just at least see them because a lot of the time we don't even know they're in there and we also have an opportunity for new ones to come in so so in a rite of passage there's a period of time there's an opportunity to review and work with our story I have a technical question for you that I've asked many folks out there uh hope I can get a somewhat of a you to to take a risk and answer that one but um what percent of the population do you estimate are still man trapped boys and trapped in men's body and what percentage of Highly powerful people let's take billionaires for example are boy strap in men's body a high percentage like 80 on boats a higher percentage and the reason why is

because they actually never went through a rite of passage because if you don't go through the rite of passage and you don't transform then your box can take those same values right through your life and this is an interesting thing when you look at the difference between men and women and these are generalizations but it's worth considering there are some natural Rites of Passage that women go

through so menstruation is a natural right of passage that that gets women in touch with something that men don't get in touch with in the same way and for the women who do have a child they unquestionably that is a riot of Passage where they have to put someone else in front of themselves they have to care for someone else they have to be present 24 7

for for years men don't naturally go through that now some do and some will be single farther than others but there's a lot of men who even though they have a child and they're responsible those men are still out drinking on a regular occasion those men are are looking for other women because their woman has put on weight and doesn't seem to be as attractive to them

and she's got a crying baby and she's tired and so instead of being home supporting her because she's sacrificing her body for the child somehow in their brain that man feels Justified to go out and try and have sex with other women so you know that is a classic example of an uninitiated man with an initiated woman you know men do go through certain forms of Rights

or passage that time but often for the man the rite of passage doesn't happen until they're 40 50 60 years of age when their wife leaves them or when they lose their job or when their parents die or when when something or they get sick or something happens to them so you know in in my experience in my work the loss of rights of Passage as you know for the teenagers is the greatest disaster that's happening in our society and it also it does affect women so when women don't yes they have these events but if they don't go through a rite of passage the danger is they stay in girl psychology which is and and the girl psychology has similarities to boy psychology but one of the big ones in couple of the big

ones in girl psychology is that girl behavior is I need validation I need people to tell me how pretty I am how how how sexy I am how good I am you know it's so that the validation typical validation that a girl gets is from the outside world whereas hopefully woman psychology is that I get the validation from inside because I know who I am and um you know it's not about having to dress up so other people will notice me look at me tell me it's actually I know who I am and another element of girl Behavior as opposed to woman behavior is that girls um only care and look after themselves or only care and look after others that's girl Behavior whereas healthy woman behavior is balancing care for self and care for

others so so and a girl is looking for a man or a hero person who's going to save them and look at you know do everything for them whereas healthy woman is hey we're in relationship we do this together and then if you look at the sort of the consequences of all of this where because we're basically an uninitiated Society instead of functioning as a community where

we're looking after each other it becomes about looking after me straight away there's a problem there and and also if I look at that staircase model everybody wants to be down the bottom of the staircase you know we worship Youth and Young you know Forever Young I want to be forever young you know that person should be put in jail that song is ridiculous so instead of

in in we're in a traditional indigenous Society the elders get the most respect in our community we you know kick the elders we reject the elders and we worship the young pretty you know handsome ones who are not developed in here but the thing is that the elders either are not wise inner Society because there's been a lack of rate of Passage sometimes I listen to 85

years old tell me stuff and I'm like like that's right that's exactly right so so the whole thing has sort of been switched around and is out of you know and you know look one of the things in our work is we need to bring back elders and and on a personal level as I'm reaching 60 I'm moving into elderhood and I've been spending a lot of time thinking what does it mean to be an elder how do I be a good Elder because we need and I I see there's this hunger in the young ones for good Elders like I have young you know 20 30 year olds almost climbing on me like you know can we spend time with you can we listen to you can we talk to you can we tell

you our ideas can we get advice can we you know they want it but there are very few Elders who actually that we have older people rather than elders and a lot of those older people are still off you know trying to build Empires and be powerful and hold on to their youth rather than accepting that they're getting older and sorry to say but they're also going

to die or even the worse you know they've been their brain has been molded to the nine to five I think the industrial revolution has been one of the worst things ever in which um some power hungry folks have almost put to to Slaves uh workers beca became slaves uh nowadays the nine to five is really hammering people's brain and converting it into jelly yes sir I

will do that yes I will punch in and I will punch out and that that's not creating leaders it's creating robots and that's what I see in the in some of that maybe 85 years old you know yeah and the elders will hold down the young and stop the develop the young developing so they can hold on to their own power right I see that a lot in my native Quebec we call it small bread you know or cutting the tallest uh blade of grass you know it's always oh don't don't strive to do more yeah don't do that it's like this jealousy right I've been through that and it's like crabbing the bucket mentality and that's one of the saddest thing so when we run a program we always make sure we have multi-generations

there so you have the young ones who are looking to the world and what they're going to do with their lives we have the ones who are in positions of power in the middle and it's about how am I going to use my power wisely and we have the elders and we give the elders respect and challenge the elders around how are they going to pass on their knowledge and support and mentor and give their wisdom to the next Generations who are coming through and I've seen the mentorship issue myself you know I've I've sought Mentor for quite a while I never got any of them uh or rare ones um first I don't think the mentorship model is good I think it needs to be win-win you know so I teach you something you

teach me something so in that sense I do have a lot of mentors I don't believe in the oh you you it's like unilateral you teach me everything and there's nothing for you and I know Charles it's not like that it's not like that when you're in a good mentoring relationship it is as valuable for the mentor right as it is for the mentee but it's not I give you and you give me right when you're when you truly Mentor the actual giving is the reward also yes you know it's because I've been mentored by very good mentors and I do mentoring myself and it's a bit like you know I spoke about stories in a rite of passage and how it's different in different cultures and it's also different at different ages so for

the young they need to hear the stories because that's how the young pick up knowledge and wisdom instead of being told how to live their lives because when that happens they just shut down but when we sh when the elders share their stories then the young listen and then the young have the choice to say I'm going to do it exactly like you did or I'm going

to do it the opposite because clearly it didn't work and that's not how I want to do it so that's how the young learn so so for the young they need to hear stories the elders need to tell stories we need to get our stories out and and so that the reward for the elders whereas the reward for the young is the gaining of knowledge and wisdom the reward for the elders is just getting their stories out and having someone listen to them so you know it's a it's a it's an interesting thing yeah I've got some personal advice to ask you Arne so as you know you and I we both use specifically have a ceremony planned for Saturday here in Oaxaca you've listened to me pre-call and is it like me giving out

excuses is me avoiding something that could be highly beneficial for me this ceremony that I could go through because I feel that the stars are aligning I've seen Stars kind of disaligned at earlier this week with the puppies that I'm taking care of with the stomach ache that I had today which is odd you know or maybe that might even be a a reflex of my body

fearing something um so what do you think do you think I should do it because a good part of me feels like I should jump into this it's a lifetime opportunity but that's a great question yes and and the trap that I have to avoid here is telling you what to do by the way and giving you the answer you have to make up your decision and this is the thing around moving into adulthood and manhood so on the one hand you have this ceremony that would be amazing and exciting and you'd get insights and you know all the fabulous benefits you've got on the other hand at this moment in your life you have some responsibilities you have additional responsibilities you have puppies to take care of you have a partner who you're going

to get married to you know you have things going on so it becomes about looking at those things and making a wise decision and very probably it's not just your decision to make because you also need to speak to your partner and say hey if I'm gone for 24 48 hours are you going to be okay looking after these puppies are the puppies going to be okay late on that level so that the green light but yeah okay so that's part of it and then there's like do I go with my intuition and and how well do I you know what what you know which parts of it do I look at and so it is about balancing things and and one of the things that I learned actually won a scholarship to Harvard University

and they would say there's it's not about right or wrong it's just consequences you know if you go to this ceremony you'll get something fantastic out of it is what's over here going to be okay and is that is now the right time to do it and only you and your partner you know only you you know with others can work that answer out and and if you don't go you'll gain something just by the fact of having been there and taking responsibility and looked after the puppies and if you do go you gain something different and out of all of that you have to work out what you do and this won't be the last ceremony probably that is you know on offer and it won't be the last time that you'll have responsibilities

that you you know may or may not have to deal with this weekend and with all of that yeah or meet with Tony like that that's a special opportunity right there because as you mentioned like me I've always thought um folks like you you know like mentors like you so but I will so first you know there's always this fear in my gut when I I come to do psychedelics because it's it's like that ego death you know like that disconnection and I told you that when I uh did breath work and all these other psychedelics rips which are usually they're super good yes there's some uh low moments but they're always wonderful there's that fear but I I think also yeah there's the sleep that I didn't get a lot with the puppies and

yeah they're doing this at night and finally which I think really kind of solidifies my decision so it was first it was a good decision but second hang on before you tell me your decision I'll just tell you one thing as an elder okay I will support you in whatever you decide to do thank you for that um the last thing that solidifies the decision is one

thing that I have not been doing post uh ceremony enough which is take time and uh digest the insights from these ceremonies because let's say that um and I haven't done that it's the third integration integration it's the hardest and the worst done and the greater the experience that we have if we don't integrate it properly the greater the potential for wounding and disappointment right and I

haven't done that in my Last vipassana Retreat I haven't done it well with my last psychedelics experience so that has been a lesson uh and let's say that yeah we're done by like 9 A.M in the morning on Sunday then I have to jump in straight with the puppies the wedding and and all of that I won't be fully there mentally as well so yeah sometimes in

life you know it's like these hard decisions you know you really want something and I think that's maturity right there you know because the the old Charles and I was reflecting on that lately you know like for example I haven't completed a 15 kilometer uh that I I said for myself the other day I mean I run tons of kilometers but yeah didn't do that time uh

then I I canceled the an entrance events you know and it you know the the immature trials would be like yeah you're you're you're not like completing those events you said for yourself but I think that might be a glimpse at the Mormon church house you know that learns to say no to 160 kilometer um Ultra not even before doing an 80 kilometer Ultra you know which

I completed last year but what do you think about that I think probably someone told you when you were young that you're a or there's something that came up in your educational system that told you being a is the worst thing in the world but there's some there will be something in there and actually you you shouldn't be basing your decision to do an ultra or anything

on the fact of you thinking you're a or someone seeing you as a you should be basing on on is this the right thing to do now for me and my community and that's it right last question for you before we go uh toxic masculinity uh you've seen these guys like Andrew Tate you know like uh unfortunately mentoring uh some youth you know the the youth needs

a lot of leadership yeah what do you have to say about that it's uninitiated again it's exactly that it's uninitiated and it's also the youth don't have anyone to Mentor them and so when there's a you know someone who stands up and says hey you know get as much money as you can have as much wealth as you can be with as many women as you can live like me uh and and the the boys who watch it see a big boy and go yeah I want to be like the big boy that that's you know I mean that's not what I would hope we aspire to but that's it's just it's the sort of the ultimate example of an adolescent Society that is putting adolescence up on a a pedestal and saying this is

who we all want to be coming back to my first point about marketing and vanity I think there's a real problem in this Society of people that claim to be something right and marketing being good I think marketing has been really has crossed the line since uh since sometime and algorithms feeding and adding gasoline on this fire to promote and to put this face uh at the

the Forefront of what people see on their phone that that is really a challenging problem for society which I intend to tackle Barney it's been amazing uh thank you so much we're going to meet in oaxacas and that's another reason why you know I'm good with skipping the ceremony because I'll ask you about your feedback there um I'm certain also that we'll stay in touch you know

like you most as a mentor really honored to you I've got to do this interview with you uh where can people find out more about you the best place well first of all thank you Charles I really enjoyed speaking to you and we could easily have gone for about another two days I reckon right but anyway I do run three-day rights of Passage leadership trainings uh which

we get an opportunity to really explore these stages and elements and understand them and the best place to find me is through my website uh which is the rights of Passage institute.org rights spelled r-i-t-e-s rights of Passage Institute um and uh dot org we we that talks about the programs that we do and the trainings that we do and we've got um programs we've helped set up

in more than 25 countries around the world and um we've got online trainings and resources and different things going on so really encourage people to go there and and also very much that we work with boys girls and people of any gender um so yeah that's best place to find us