Combating the Emotional Struggle with Evryman Co-Founder, Lucas Krump

In this episode Lucas Krump, co-founder of Evryman, discusses the challenges men face today, including loneliness, a lack of belonging, and the search for purpose. Lucas shares insights from his journey in founding Evryman, a movement aimed at empowering men to live healthier, more connected lives through shared experiences and emotional vulnerability. They explore the importance of emotional safety, the transformative power of retreats, and how men can navigate their fears and develop deeper connections with themselves and others.

Takeaways

• Men often struggle with loneliness and a lack of connection.
• The Evryman movement was founded to address men's emotional needs.
• Vulnerability is essential for emotional safety in relationships.
• Many men feel stuck in repetitive life patterns.
• Retreats provide peak experiences for self-discovery.
• Emotional labor is necessary for personal growth.
• Men need to practice articulating their emotions.
• Fear can be a catalyst for growth and focus.
• Connection with others is vital for mental health.
• The average of the top five people you spend time with influences your life. 

How to find Evryman
www.evryman.com
Instagram  https://www.instagram.com/evryman/

Dad to Dads Podcast on IG www.instagram.com/dadtodads

Transcript

Robert (00:00)
Hey everyone. And welcome back to the dad to dad's podcast. So in my conversations with men, when we talk about, know, what they're feeling, what they might be missing, what they're, ⁓ even internally, what they might be dealing with. There's a few things, usually about three things that I generally hear coming up. One is, ⁓ loneliness and it's kind of a sense of not feeling connected, whether it's at home, whether it's with other men,

Two is usually a sense of belonging, uh, belonging to something maybe bigger than how they view the current world or their surroundings. And a lot of times the last one is a sense of purpose. Um, why am I here? You know, am I living the life I should be living? Am I living a fulfilling life?

So back in 2016, today's guests gathered a small group of guys, ⁓ to help tackle, help address and help tackle some of those issues and has basically grown it into a global network of men. Lucas Krump. Welcome to the podcast.

Lucas Krump (01:08)
Hey Robert, thanks for being here. It's just wild. Yeah, no, was just, when you were saying 2016, it just seems like yesterday and also like a lifetime ago.

Robert (01:10)
Man, I really appreciate you coming on.

I bet, I bet.

Well, I mean, did it really, did every man really start off like just a small group of guys you got you guys getting together?

Lucas Krump (01:29)
Yeah, it was a coincidental thing for me. In 2016, I was living in New York City, had sort of been through the journey of working for an early stage tech company. That company was acquired and things happened in my life that left me at an intersection where I was like, wow, what's missing?

And so in 2016, I started sort of looking at my own life, self-inquiry. ⁓ And that self-inquiry led me to my other two co-founders of Evryman, Dan Doty and Sasha Lewis, who had sat together in a men's group in New York City for a number of years. ⁓ And I coincidentally met Dan. He invited me to this retreat that they were going to do in upstate New York. And so I was actually a participant. ⁓

at that first, what we called open source. That was actually before the name Evryman existed. ⁓ And yeah, it was about 20 guys. We got together in a barn in Sheffield, Massachusetts. We're actually going back to that same barn next week with a group of guys. It's a barn. It's a barn, not a bar. ⁓ And that first retreat was, I would call it an experiment. ⁓

Robert (02:29)
So it's a barn, not a bar, a barn. Wow.

Lucas Krump (02:41)
you know, and I was there as a participant, but I was also there as someone who had started his own journey of self-inquiry many years before that. And, you know, I was absolutely blown away by the depth of...

emotionality and sort of rawness that I saw in other participants that were kind of new, guess, new to this kind of inquiry and self exploration. And it just, it blew me wide open. And at the end of that retreat, I, you know, I'd said to Dan and Sasha, like, Hey, ⁓

we gotta do more of this, you know, how do we do that? And so shortly after that, we got together in ⁓ a conference room in New York City and sketched out a big vision for every man and here we are today. I mean, the path has certainly not been linear, ⁓ but I think where we are today speaks volumes for the need. ⁓

and what I would call the demand for the things that you spoke about, connection, purpose, ⁓ knowing. Those are all things that men want and need in their lives and that I think that are looking for.

And so we've been able to fill that void in our own way. And certainly there's been other organizations that have done it ⁓ in their way. I'm really proud of everything that we've gone through to be in this moment and the number of men that we have impacted through this work.

Robert (04:14)
So what is it that you guys do? I mean, I know that's very broad because you guys do a lot, right? It's kind of like going to huge restaurant. What do you serve? You you serve food. What do you serve? mean, or what's the, what are the ingredients? That's a lot, but kind of what is the, if you had to tell me, you know, if we were in an elevator, Hey, what does every man do? What's the purpose?

Lucas Krump (04:37)
Yeah, mean, every man enables men or empowers men to live healthier, happier, more connected lives. And we do that through ⁓ shared experience, wisdom, ⁓ knowledge and connection. Right. And I think that, you know, that may sound broad. It is at the heart of what we do. You know, we. I hear from

lots of men that are walking around with a knowing, knowing that something is not aligned internally, ⁓ knowing that maybe they're not living the life that they want to be living, knowing that they're maybe stuck in a loop ⁓ that just keeps coming back around and around and around again. And so,

You know, when a man gets to that point where he's just tired of that shit, quite frankly, he has to make a decision to change. And that decision to change often leads men to every man. Like I always say, like, every man can't do anything for you if you're not ready to do something for yourself, right? And quite frankly, doing something for yourself is a selfish act.

especially if you're in a family and you've got to be a provider or you've never sort of put yourself first, right? ⁓ But that selfish act is...

It's so critical to sort of grasping our own agency and saying, can't be great for anyone else, for my partner, for my children, for my colleagues, if I'm not great for who I am.

Robert (06:34)
Yeah, that, you know, when you're saying that I'm thinking you can't love somebody else if you don't love, you can't love somebody else if you don't love yourself first.

Lucas Krump (06:44)
Correct, correct. ⁓ You know, and oftentimes we grasp for love to replace the love that we don't have for ourselves. ⁓ And then that will lead to contortion or performative behavior that only gets us further and further from who we actually are at our core.

And so I see that kind of playing out time and time again. But I would say, just to come back around to your point, one of the core things that we do is we...

we have what we call our every man method, which is very much grounded in somatic awareness, right? ⁓ And so as men, we spend a lot of time in our heads. We don't spend a lot of time in our heart or in our body, right? And you know, our body and our emotions are critical to supporting our nervous system, right? And so we create space and we provide men the tools and the training and the

training ground to actually practice getting out of our head and getting into our bodies and feeling what we need to feel and then developing our level of vulnerability so we can connect with ourselves and others in a way that actually provides us that nutrient of connection. You you touched on loneliness.

It's not like we don't, we live in a world where we're more connected than we've ever been. So why are we lonely? Well, we're lonely because we're not able to receive the nutrient of connection, which comes through vulnerability, which is hard for guys because quite honestly, who the hell taught you how to do that? Nobody taught me how to do it.

Robert (08:39)
No, you're, you are right. I was with some people the other day, some old friends and we've, we're on a text chain and you know, catching up all the time and, giving each other a hard time talking about sports. It's just everything. And then we were able to get together, ⁓ in person and spend a few hours together and really that conversation evolved into talking about what we're dealing with, the stresses of this, the stresses of that, fears. And at the end.

Lucas Krump (09:05)
Yeah.

Robert (09:07)
You know, one of my friends is like, I'm re I'm so happy that we got to do this. Like, you know, I've missed this and I need, I've needed this. And I was thinking about this when we were leaving. It was like, yeah, like we communicate. And it's so easy. You know, the texts will pop up whatever time we'll communicate that way, but it's not really the deep, Hey, I'm scared about this. You know, I'm in my.

50s and I'm doing well and the economy's not great. I'm afraid I'm going to lose my job. You know, I don't know how I'm going to approach my wife and kids about it. You can't do that over, you know, and all their internal struggles. You can't do that over text and

Lucas Krump (09:48)
Yeah.

Well, you know, and one thing I would say is that...

Often, as men, kind of do this thing where we put shit off until we actually, until the pain and suffering sort of outweighs everything else. And so, unfortunately, that's just our tendency. But in reality, I really believe that we are in a moment, a shift in our sort of cultural psyche where

Robert (10:01)
Ha ha ha.

Guilty.

Lucas Krump (10:23)
guys doing the work in advance of the explosion is what I would call the new sort of masculinity. It's like, hey man, like, I know if I don't get my shit together and figure out who I am,

Robert (10:36)
Yeah.

Lucas Krump (10:43)
that inevitably when life gets hard, it's gonna seep out and blow up in ways that I don't really want. And so it's really interesting that I see more and more guys that are saying, hey, I'm gonna actually, I'm gonna start to do the work now so that when that conversation needs to happen, I actually have the tools to navigate this. Because you can imagine that if your buddy,

hadn't learned how to do this, that's gonna be a really rough conversation.

Robert (11:19)
yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's, that's so true. That's so true. So I want to dive in a little bit deeper with the issues that you see men dealing with. Do you mind kind of going in a little bit further, maybe kind of the common things when men come to you guys, what they might be experiencing dealing with.

Lucas Krump (11:34)
Hmm.

Yeah, well, I mean, I definitely think connection is at the core of it, right? ⁓ So relationships often suffer as a function of an imbalance in emotionality. Obviously, women are very... ⁓

well-versed in emotionality and vulnerability and oftentimes, yeah, and oftentimes men are not able to meet them where they're at. And that doesn't have to be an apples to apples, but we need to be able to, you you often hear women, I wanna feel you, right? Well, if I say, hey Robert, how are you doing today? And you say, good, well, you know, spoiler, good is not an emotion, right? It doesn't tell me anything about you.

Robert (12:04)
Great way to put it.

Lucas Krump (12:30)
think helping guys understand their emotionality and then being able to communicate and articulate that in a way that allows for our partners to connect with us and also for us to be able to create what I call emotional safety, right, is really, really core. I think another ⁓ pattern that I see is just guys really stuck in the loop.

Right? Just kind of like going through the motions, doing the same shit every day and getting the same outcome, you know, whether it be in relationships, whether it be in just their overall sense of purpose and meaning in life, right? Whether it be in...

you know, their relationship with their children, not being able to really feel a deeper level of connection, right? Like guys get stuck in this loop and I know because I've been stuck in a loop, right? And it's like at some point you just got to get out of the drying machine and be like, I got to do something about this.

Robert (13:32)
Yeah, yeah.

No, I think that's great. you see, unfortunately, you see a lot of men that do get stuck in that loop and decide just to kind of stay there. There's nothing more. then think that leads to that at times, whether it's failed relationships or just overall depression and, yeah.

Lucas Krump (14:01)
Yeah, numbing out and quite

frankly, there's been a, we live in a culture that for a long time has kind of given license to that. It's like that's what we're supposed to do. Suck it up, keep chugging along and just think that you're gonna persevere.

and things will be better on the other side, well, you know, that doesn't work, right?

Robert (14:33)
No, you're saying that I'm thinking, yeah, keep doing your eight to six, your nine to five, dropping a few dollars into your 401k and this is life. This is what it's supposed to be about. ⁓ Go home, deal with what's at home, go back, start it up the next day and this is what life's about. And that's a depressing cycle.

Lucas Krump (14:54)
Right.

Well, and what's depressing about that is that

there's nothing wrong with that cycle, right? Our being craves some level of predictability and rhythm, right? That's what actually soothes and calms our nervous systems and allows us to make sort of decisions from rational places. But if you're not connected to yourself and you don't have that ability to express your emotionality, then...

It's almost like you're gonna be watching that movie or participating in that movie in black and white and not color. It's gonna be a lot better if it's in color, right, man? Eight to six, great. You got a steady job, you're doing well, and you can come home and you can love your wife and you guys can laugh and you can cry and you can care for one another and you can have adventures.

Robert (15:39)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lucas Krump (15:56)
What the hell's wrong with that? That's a good life. like, if we, you know what I mean? Like we get stuck in this trap where we're like, yeah, I'm just doing the same thing every day. Well, it's like, that's okay. Like, are you enjoying it? You know? Like, are you enjoying the beauty of that?

Robert (16:10)
Yeah. If you're enjoying it, that's great, but it can, it can

be such a depressive cycle to get in. So I want to ask you, I want to jump into the retreats that you guys have. I, ⁓ it's probably safe to assume it's not, you know, a bunch of men sitting around a bonfire drinking bourbon and talking about, you know, what kind of crap are you going through? You know, what are you dealing with? I mean, do you mind kind of going through that? Cause

Lucas Krump (16:15)
Right.

Robert (16:38)
Cause honestly that's, that's where I found you guys when I was looking at different things and I'm like, this is really cool. Like this is so neat. Go, go into that for those that don't know.

Lucas Krump (16:42)
Yeah.

Yeah.

For sure. Well, it is kind of like that minus the bourbon. ⁓ sort of, ⁓ you know, we keep that till after the retreat. But no, the retreat is designed to... ⁓

We, often times what happens is, the psychology of behavior change, there's sort of two parts, right? There's peak experiences, and then there's...

you know, actual behavior change, right? And we crave as humans, we crave peak experiences. And what I mean by that is like, I'm going to go to this retreat or I'm going to go do this thing and I'm going to get out of my everyday environment. And I'm going to be able to look at myself and look at my life in a different way, right? That is not ⁓ obstructed by what's going on every day. And so a retreat,

You know gives you 48 hours to do that in a very very intentional way and that is so critical To be able to get out of our everyday lives Come together with a group of guys that you've never met before and we're gonna guide you on a roller coaster of Emotionality

in a way that you are safe and, you know, supported. And what that is gonna allow you to do is actually come into the knowing of your own self, of the full expression and capability that you have as a human, to sort of wake you up and say, hey, Robert, like, look at what you are capable of. You are capable of...

laughing your ass off, you are capable of being on your knees in tears, you are capable of expressing love and empathy for another man that you've never met before, you are capable of actually putting a stake in the ground and saying, this is who I am and this is what I want. And we're gonna give you the ability to do that. But the change doesn't occur until you take that

and you start to put it into practice because behavior change is, know, the equation is simple, repetition over time, right? And so that being said, some guys come to two or three retreats every year and that's their, you know, that's their tune-up, that's their mechanism that they use to stay in touch with that part of themselves. ⁓ But retreats are...

Robert (19:23)
Really?

Lucas Krump (19:36)
I mean, they're fun as hell. And at the end of it, you're going to feel like you just ran, you know, an Iron Man because you are going to start to use muscle, emotional muscle that you probably have never exercised before in your life. And you're going to feel the fatigue of that emotional labor.

in the most beautiful way. Just like you went skiing for the day or you went on a random marathon or something else. It's a good tired. You earned it.

Robert (20:15)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. For me, it's kind of like leg day when working out. It's like, I don't want to do it. this is painful. I hate doing this. And then at the end you're like, ⁓ I'm so happy I did that. I feel so good about it. ⁓ and I don't want to do it again in four days, but yeah.

Lucas Krump (20:20)
Yeah.

Exactly exactly exactly

No, but you in in who would that's the thing that's what we do is guys it's like You know if I was like hey Robert you want to go on a weekend with some guys and like you know rip your heart open and cry and speak your deepest truth you like fuck no But it but in the back of your mind, you know, it's probably what you need to do You know and it's

Robert (20:37)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what's best for

you.

Lucas Krump (20:55)
And that's just the difference that you know that's the difference between the guy that's stuck in the loop or the guy that says ⁓ Yeah, man. This is gonna really suck and maybe I'm a little bit timid about this, but I actually do need to do this Hey, you know

Robert (21:12)
Yeah. Yeah. Because

then it improves your life and probably every facet coming out of that. Right. I mean,

Lucas Krump (21:20)
I mean, we've done so many of these retreats. couldn't, you know, anecdotally, anecdotally, nobody's coming up to me and said, that was a really, that was a total waste of my time, you know?

Robert (21:33)
Yeah. I'm sure.

I'm sure. So are these, it's, it's not really one-on-one. I mean, is it, it's group therapy. Is that more of what it is kind of

Lucas Krump (21:43)
I definitely wouldn't call what we do therapy, know, therapists are therapists for a reason. You know, what we do is therapeutic unequivocally. ⁓ yeah, I personally believe that as humans, we, you know, if you were to say, and this is kind of a side note, but you know, if you look at...

Robert (21:48)
Right.

So more like facilitators sort of.

Lucas Krump (22:08)
the current messaging, right, in our culture. It's like, oh, men's mental health crisis, right? Well, you know, mental health has a varying degree of severity, right? Five being severe mental health in which somebody has a diagnosable mental health disorder, which is common and known, right? And then one being life.

Right? The struggle, the ups and downs, the stress that comes from just living our lives. I personally believe that we as humans, as men, we have the capacity between sort of one to three, maybe even four, to actually care for ourselves and others, right? Until we need to bring in the professionals. And so what is core of the work that we do is relationship.

Right, I would call it relational fitness and in that if you look at your life Your life is the aggregate of all the relationships that you have relationship with yourself relationship with your spouse relationship with your children with your your families You know with your co-workers, right all of those relationships Define who we are well

who taught you how to be in relation with another person?

Because I mean, is a, you know, this is, you know, if you look at evolutionary biology, we are hardwired for connection. We need connection to survive, right? And so.

Robert (23:51)
absolutely. Yeah.

Lucas Krump (23:54)
If we need connections to survive, then we need those relationships. And if we need those relationships, well then how do we actually navigate and get the most out of those relationships in a way that actually nourishes us and supports us and allows us to be sovereign in who we are and the other person to be sovereign in who they are, but us for to actually meet in the middle and build this relationship. Well, that's something that you have to practice doing. It just doesn't happen.

Robert (24:23)
And so you guys,

guess with this retreat, you guys help identify that and then basically give them the tools so when they leave, they have that toolbox to use going forward. Is that correct?

Lucas Krump (24:36)
unequivocally, unequivocally. And you know, one thing I would say is that there's there's a, there's a very basic formula that, you know, it's a, here's the freebie, but the formula is this. Robert, when you said X, I felt Y.

And what that is doing is saying, Robert, I heard you. And when you express that, I felt this emotion. And what that's doing is it's unconsciously telling you that I see you and your expression, whatever it may be, I'm tuned into myself enough.

to be able to be impacted by what you're saying. And you can take that into your relationship right now. And it doesn't require justification or any further discussion. Hey, when you said you were angry at me, I felt sad.

Robert (25:27)
be empathetic.

Lucas Krump (25:47)
Like, that's my own experience, that's my emotional experience. You can't change that for me. And I get to express that to you in an honest, vulnerable way. Now you get to choose with what you do with it. But just simply by doing that, I'm practicing vulnerability and I'm practiced being in relation with you.

Robert (26:00)
What do with that, yeah.

I would imagine at times it is for, well, I don't know. Cause I think if I was going to say, imagine for some men, you guys probably see that it's hard to crack that initial shell. I, but then on the flip side, yeah. Cause then I was thinking on the, on the flip side, if you're making that first step, you're willing to have that shell cracked. You know, you're willing to open that door and show those raw emotions. So I guess not then. And,

Lucas Krump (26:25)
It's not. It's not.

I mean, look, it,

I always, I'm always quick to, as guys we're competitive, right? And it's amazing to me to see that competitiveness that's come out in our emotionality, right? It's like, wow, I need to be more vulnerable than Robert. Like I need to have a bigger cry than Robert. It's like, yeah, yeah. It's like, what the hell? And it's like, it's like, no.

Robert (26:56)
Yeah, yeah.

I need to cry more than him.

Lucas Krump (27:08)
Your experience does not need to look like Robert's experience. So like, maybe you just saying, hey, I was on a call. I was guiding a group a couple weeks ago and there was a 76 year old man that was on the call. And he said, and I said, know, Mike, how do you feel in relation to Nick right now?

Robert (27:08)
You

Lucas Krump (27:37)
And he said, oh, I feel camaraderie. Right. And I had to correct him and say, you know, Mike, camaraderie is guy speak for love. So what if you just told Nick that you loved him? And that was such an enormous stretch. But what it led to was, wow.

Robert (27:49)
Yeah, yeah.

I'm sure. Yeah.

Lucas Krump (28:05)
I actually don't know how to tell my own sons that I love them.

And we're talking one word. We're not talking like some, you know, cataclysmic emotional release. And that's okay.

Robert (28:12)
Yeah. Yeah.

I imagine at the end of these, the friendships, the bonds that are made are just unbelievable between the participants.

Lucas Krump (28:32)
Yes, yes. And the reason why that is, ⁓ because if you study teams, right, and I think I didn't serve in the military, but we do have a number of veterans ⁓ from special forces and various other groups that have participated and are participants, actually Judd Kopp and our CEO is a former Navy SEAL. ⁓

Teams don't become teams until there's some level of shared sacrifice. Right? And that sacrifice can come when you're risking your life for another man. That shared sacrifice can come on a playing field when you're working your ass off and you guys are trying to win a game. That shared sacrifice can come when, it's like...

We all took down our guard this weekend, and we all sort of showed a little bit more of ourselves than we're used to showing. And if you're human, you're gonna recognize that sacrifice, right? And you're gonna feel like you're a team. There's a lot of guys that say, wow, like, known you for 48 hours, and like, you're my best friend in the entire world. Well, uh.

Robert (29:29)
⁓ Yeah.

but yeah, nobody better than anybody else, no.

Lucas Krump (29:46)
Of course because you know Bobby who you grew up with from the third grade You've never told anything about who you are and you've been holding on to the relationship with Bobby Because you haven't had the tools to actually go and create new relationships Based on who you are now in your life. I see that so often guys hold on to these friendships and that's there's nothing wrong with that, but like You know, here's the reality

You are the average of the top five people that you spend the most amount of time with. And so I always tell guys, it's like, know, Evryman is a growth group. Like if you want to grow, if you want to change, if you want to become a better version of yourself, the fastest way to do that is start hanging out with guys that want to do that same thing.

Robert (30:19)
Sure, sure.

Yeah. you're saying that I had, I had a conversation with my son's not too long ago talking about that same thing. You know, you look at, you look at your friends and the, was the same conversation. I mean, it was the same one. And, ⁓ you know, about picking your friends wisely and they have done, they've done a great job. So let me say that they've done a great job. And I was actually expressing the expressing to them how proud I was of them.

Lucas Krump (30:42)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Robert (31:05)
And

saying that very thing, like you are an at, you are the average. You, you are right there at the average of the five guys, the five people that you hang around the most. And I want you to keep that in mind. So if you've got, you know, if you let one or two that are maybe going down the wrong path. All right. That's going to skew your average in that direction. And you need to always keep that in mind. You want to perform better? Okay. Maybe look for.

You know, a couple more higher achievers that type and that's yeah.

Lucas Krump (31:37)
Well,

and what's interesting, and it's great that you're having that conversation, you know, and what's interesting about that, and this is, this goes back to group dynamics, and we have Abigail Rue as a PhD in sort of group dynamics and works with us, and what's so interesting about that is in that dynamic, the group won't ever let you fall behind.

but the group will also not ever let you rise above. So the group creates this space in which you can operate in, which is fine, but if you want to go beyond that, you have to break free.

Robert (32:07)
Very true. Very true.

Yeah, very true. Very true. Because, and I'm smiling because that was part of it too. And I said, I'll told them, said, look, your friends now you view them as those are going to be your friends forever. They might not be because you might reach a place, you know, in your life or in your professional pursuit where you might notice one or two or three, or maybe all of them are kind of anchors. They're holding you back and

Lucas Krump (32:43)
Yeah.

Robert (32:47)
Don't be afraid to let them go.

Lucas Krump (32:50)
It's so interesting that you say that. was recently, last year I was back, I'm from Kansas City originally, and I haven't been back in, I don't know, 15 years. But I drove by my high school, and I went to an all-boys Jesuit school, and I have nephews, and I was looking at them and their names, and it's such an interesting thing for young men, because high school,

it creates this sort of Petri dish, right? This space that they get to operate in. And that becomes their community and their social network because of function of the environment that they're in every day. And I was thinking about, as soon as they left high school and left college, then I got to go out into the world.

and just be whoever I, you know, there was no, is he cool or is he not? You know what I mean? Like young men in the context of, you know, high school create this sort of hierarchy that doesn't exist in the real world. You know, it's like, I don't know if you're cool or not cool. I don't know, you just seem like a nice guy, like whatever. You know? ⁓ But it's just so interesting that they don't see that.

Robert (33:47)
Right, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lucas Krump (34:09)
when they're in it.

Robert (34:11)
Yeah,

that's, that's true. Hey, so, and I want to be cognizant every time, ⁓ the, You have multiple retreats a year throughout the country. They're not retreats where you guys are getting together at a hotel and in the little conference room, you know, down the hotel, these are tell, tell more. They're cool places.

Lucas Krump (34:31)
No,

no, no, no, we're definitely not in the church basement. ⁓ No, we do the retreats all over the country. ⁓ Our next one is next month in upstate New York, Bracebrook Lodge. We ⁓ do them down in Texas outside of Austin at a different ranch. We also do what we call expeditions that are kind of adventure based. We have one coming up this summer, which is a sea kayaking retreat. ⁓

Robert (34:35)
Ha

Lucas Krump (35:00)
you know up in Washington State and so they are you know nature is very powerful medicine ⁓ and combined with this work it just the alchemy of that experience is really powerful. You know the other thing I would say is that the online platform and I've just been wildly

Robert (35:24)
Good.

Lucas Krump (35:27)
blown away. always knew that we wanted to develop the online platform ⁓ even when we started with the retreats. COVID gave us the opportunity to kind of pause the retreats ⁓ and build out the online platform. And we've been iterating and building upon that ever since then. And today, I mean,

We have an introductory program which is called Evryman Fundamentals which is a four week online program. It's 90 minutes every Tuesday night so it's 360 minutes. I always like to say it's 1 % of the available minutes that guys have. You guys are like, don't have time. I'm like, dude, you don't have 1 %? I don't know, man. You gotta have 1%. You gotta have 1 % of your time. But yeah, it's 1 % of your time and in four weeks...

you will develop many of the same sort of inquiries and, you know, obviously in a different format. And then from there, we have the training ground or the membership community as we call it, ⁓ where we facilitate.

Robert (36:26)
Right, right.

Lucas Krump (36:37)
men's groups every single day across a variety of different topics, everything from work and money, ⁓ fathers and uncles, ⁓ purpose and leadership, ⁓ spirituality, ⁓ there's, you know, divorce and separation, there's a whole variety of groups that are facilitated by

Robert (36:41)
Really?

Lucas Krump (36:59)
guys that have been through our training and certification program, that many of them are coaches or therapists or counselors in their day-to-day lives working one-on-one, and then they lead and facilitate groups for us throughout the week. And the power of those groups is that we call them drop-in groups. So...

a traditional kind of men's group, there's an expectation that Robert's gonna be there every Monday night from seven to nine o'clock. Well, you know what? Robert's busy as hell. He's traveling for work, he's doing all kinds of stuff. Like, Robert knows what's best for him. And so...

we're not creating an expectation that you have to be there every Monday night. So you can show up, you can join the group. Many guys, they do come to the same groups because it just becomes part of their schedule. And then they sort of...

self-select to make this a priority in their lives versus that sort of heavy-handed, hey, you gotta be, if you wanna be in this group, you gotta be here for three hours every Monday night. I mean, that's a big lift for guys like us.

Robert (38:09)
Yeah.

So you don't have to go to the retreat before you start doing the virtual. That's great.

Lucas Krump (38:14)
Absolutely not.

not. Fundamentals is a program that we run every single month. It starts the first Tuesday of every month.

Robert (38:22)
Gosh, that's great. And the in-person retreats are more of almost like a emotional boot camp, ⁓ really dig in hard, ⁓ get everything really intense, but also in touch with nature.

Lucas Krump (38:31)
Yeah.

Well, yeah, but

for sure, but the awesome thing about the combination is...

Like we've got to retreat next week. And there are guys that went through the online programs that see each other and connect in groups. And now they're going to see each other in person. And so like they've already developed this relationship that's now is going to be like, you know, supersized. Right. You know, and we see that all the time.

Robert (39:05)
That's going to be cool to see. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that would be really cool to see. And so these retreats, they're multiple times a year, correct, throughout the country.

Lucas Krump (39:17)
Yep,

multiple times a year throughout the country. We take a little bit of a break during the summer months just because of holiday travel and everything else. ⁓ But we do do the expeditions. ⁓ And then we do them, you know, in Joshua Tree outside of Los Angeles. We do them ⁓ in Hill Country outside of Austin, Texas, and then in upstate New York at Racebrook Lodge. kind of wherever you want to.

Robert (39:43)
Even the fact just to go

there for a weekend and hang out and be around other men. Wow, that's appealing in and of itself,

Lucas Krump (39:50)
It's it's I'm totally biased obviously, but it's life-changing and it's one of those things where

You know, look, like the thing about every man and the core ethos, like I grew up in Kansas, you know, and when I was 37 years old in New York City and knew that I had to change something about my being to get more out of my life.

I started looking around and I found a bunch of different things, quite honestly. And there are a lot of things out there. But the question that I asked myself, was like, where are just the everyday dudes, just like me, that are, you know, it's like, you know, I'm not trying to be overly spiritual or super woo woo or beating drums. Not that there's anything wrong with that. mean, I like to do that shit. But I'm just like, hey.

We're the everyday dudes, just like me. And we didn't find it. But so we're like, hell, like, let's just call it every man because it is for every man. It's not the woo woo and all the stuff that that's fine. And, you know, if guys want that, that's out there for them. But I.

Robert (40:48)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lucas Krump (41:09)
You know, we kind of fundamentally don't believe that you actually need... It's kind of distraction, you know? It's kind of just noise, right?

Robert (41:13)
Yeah, I agree.

Agree.

Agree. And, and, and to go back to you've got the virtual and that is, mean, you've got that as well. If you can't attend, you know, if I couldn't attend a retreat, I can jump on and start making these gains, you know, through. Yeah.

Lucas Krump (41:27)
Yeah.

Immediately. I mean,

the level of impact that's able to be created is monumental in a very short period of time.

Robert (41:46)
I love that.

I love that. I love what you guys are doing. I really do and I appreciate what you're doing as well. How can people find you guys?

Lucas Krump (41:57)
Evryman.com, E-V-R-Y-M-A-N.com. So 1-E. Like I said, anybody can become a member anytime. ⁓ You can join our fundamentals program. That happens the first Tuesday of every month. ⁓ And then our retreats, we've got one next weekend. I don't know when this is coming out, but we've got a few spots available. But you know, I think the other thing I would say is that...

It's natural for guys to be kind of healthy skeptics. Like, look, I'm a healthy skeptic, you know? And that's okay. We should listen to that. And we should listen to the meeting like, okay, what are all the reasons why I'm trying to convince myself that this is bullshit and I don't need to do that? Because most likely,

you're running that same conversation in other areas of your life.

And, and, you know, that's the loop.

Robert (42:59)
That's it. That's it. You hit it.

Lucas Krump (43:02)
You know,

if I do this differently, she won't get as upset or if I, you know, just, you know, do a little bit more work than I can, you know, it's like, we're always that's that's human nature. We're always going to do that to ourselves. Until we say, OK, hold on a second, I got to do something different here. And it should be scary. It's you. should be reluctant like.

when you get under ⁓ a bench press and you got four plates on there, and you should be like, shit, I don't know if I can lift this today. But the fact that you're able to get under there and do it is what enables growth. mean, here's the, I'm a biology nerd. Here's the thing.

Robert (43:39)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lucas Krump (43:52)
our biology, our brain rewards us with dopamine when we do hard things. When we do things that scare us or do things that require struggle and we go through that, our brain rewards us with dopamine because it's actually training us to survive, which is what

we are put on this earth to do. We are hardwired to survive. We have to do hard things. So if we don't do hard things, we never get the dopamine that trains us to do those hard things.

Robert (44:30)
that makes complete sense. And I did not realize that, that makes complete sense. And then on the flip side, we've talked about, we were talking about this earlier, on the flip side with the nervous system, do you mind kind of going into that?

Lucas Krump (44:42)
Yeah.

Well, yeah, and I think, you know, we were touching on this earlier, and we just don't do not. We. You know, this meat suit that we're in, right? We we dramatically under appreciate all the working parts of it. You know, it's like our autonomic nervous system. Like, holy shit, just think about that for a second. Like, there's this part of us like I wake up in the morning and I'm not telling myself to breathe.

Right? I'm not telling my heart to beat. It's a freaking miracle. Our nervous system goes through this process of fight, flight or freeze. Right? And our nervous system is what keeps us safe. Right? And when chaos is around us, we go into survival, right? And oftentimes, survival is a

healthy place for men to be. Because survival is when we are needed biologically, right? Survive, protect, provide, right? But it's also a very chaotic place, right? And so our ability to actually down regulate our nervous system out of that fight or flight and and and ⁓

be sort of cool under pressure is what we have to train ourselves to do, right? And so understanding, okay, yeah, you know, this conversation that I'm having is gonna be triggering as all hell, or, you know, yeah, taxes and tariffs is spinning my world out. Like, just knowing that that is going to...

you know, activate your nervous system and put you into a fight, flight or freeze response is a very important sort of awareness to have because no good decisions are made from that place.

Robert (46:49)
Right.

No, that's true. And so basically you guys help them realize that, discover that, get in touch with that. And then the tools of how to deal with that going forward.

Lucas Krump (47:03)
how to deal with it, how to manage it, right? And there's a saying that I use, like, take advantage of it, because here's the beautiful thing about...

Robert (47:08)
and even take advantage of it, right? Yeah.

Lucas Krump (47:17)
Fight, Fight or Freeze is often stimulated by fear, right? But fear actually makes us better, right? Because if we are fearful of things, then we are going to consciously and subconsciously mitigate risk, which actually makes us sharper and more focused, right?

Robert (47:42)
Yeah, yeah.

Lucas Krump (47:43)
And

so, but if we have this relationship with fear, as if fear, ⁓ you know, because guys say, ⁓ I'm fear, and then they say, I'm stressed, and then stress turns into, you know, anger, and then anger turns into, you know, depression. It's like, well, you just need to develop your relationship with fear and understand that, like, you're afraid. Okay.

That's a normal response. How do I create a relationship with that and actually take that information, that data that my body is giving me and use that, use that as an asset to be more focused, to be more calculated. But what we often do is we shy away from that fear.

Robert (48:11)
Yeah, yeah, of course you are.

Use that as asset.

Lucas Krump (48:36)
Like we don't want to go near it, we don't want to touch it. It's like, if you can't touch it, you're not going to get the benefit of it.

Robert (48:44)
No, that's great. That makes so much sense. That makes so much sense. Hey, so before we go, tell everybody where you are with your gorgeous background and give us a little peek.

Lucas Krump (48:54)
I'm in Lisbon, Portugal right now. Great.

Robert (48:59)
Man, I appreciate it. I know

we've kind of struggled with the time there and getting together and I just appreciate you doing it.

Lucas Krump (49:07)
I appreciate the opportunity to be on here and just, you know, ⁓ it's eight, nine years ago when we started this journey, ⁓ there weren't, there weren't a lot of guys out there like you, you know, and I really respect who you are and just the willingness to have this conversation. And, you know, the last thing I'll say is that,

As guys, we do this thing, and it's only amplified through social media and everything else, is we sort of put ourselves on other people's timelines, right? On other people's journeys, right? And it's like, why? You know what I mean? Like, I'm 46 years old and you know what?

I've never been 46 years old on April 18th in the year 2025. So why would I expect to be anywhere other than exactly where I am with all that I've learned and known? I'm not you. ⁓

Robert (50:09)
No,

that, that is, that is so true. it's the, that I think that's so common. It's something I've, I've dealt with it. What, know, they're my age and look what they've accomplished or, know, they're younger than me and look what they've accomplished. it's, I think that that's something that we struggle with that men struggle with. And it's also, it's in our face all the time with social media and everything else too. Right.

Lucas Krump (50:38)
Right. And it... We don't get...

Robert (50:39)
And we don't give our self credit. We don't give our self credit. Like

you didn't have the tools. You didn't have the background. You didn't have this. You didn't have that not to make excuses, but look where you came from and what you've had. Did you use those? Did you use those fully? You know, that's my, that's more of what's helped me.

Lucas Krump (50:46)
Yeah.

Right, right,

right. It's just looking at it and saying, well, okay, great, that's where you are. And you know, oftentimes as guys, because we're competitive, we look at that with disdain. And it's like, on a second. What if I actually looked at that with appreciation and acknowledgement and empathy? Because that's the energy.

Robert (51:07)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lucas Krump (51:22)
that's gonna bring that back to you in your own life. And so it's like, you know, I see dudes starting every man that are 75 years old. It's like, man, I see guys that are 24 and 38 and 57. You know, it's like, whatever, dude. Like, like.

Robert (51:40)
Yeah, I mean, did you take some wrong paths along the way? Yeah. But what did you learn from? What did you learn from those? You know? Yeah. Yeah. You.

Lucas Krump (51:44)
Of course. Of course. Of course. And you

know, every man doesn't fix it all, but it gives you the ability to actually learn. And because if your head is in the sand, you're gonna be in the loop and you're not gonna get the data that the loop is giving you.

Robert (52:08)
Yeah. Yeah. Lucas. I love it. I absolutely love it. And, ⁓ man, I appreciate what you guys are doing. you know, I know this is kind of a, a ⁓ dad, ⁓ podcast and we, I mean, my goodness, we discuss all sorts of things, but when I saw it, when I, when I noticed you guys discovered, discovered you guys, it's like, that's something that I struggle with. It's something I know men struggle with. hear about constantly.

I've just got to get these guys on and I so much appreciate you taking time out of your day and, ⁓ you know, coming on here and talking about it and what you guys are doing.

Lucas Krump (52:44)
Yeah.

Anytime. I appreciate you for having me on. And we'll do it again. We'll get you to a retreat. ⁓

Robert (52:53)
Absolutely. All right. So

it's everyman.com it's E V E V R Y ⁓ N.com. And I also know that you guys are on ⁓ Instagram. I will, I will, ⁓ tag you guys. I'll also, ⁓ when I released this, I'll put links, of course to your webpage, as well as to Instagram as well. So if anybody's looking, they can easily find you guys also. So Lucas, thank you for coming on.

Lucas Krump (52:58)
R. Yep. Yep.

every minute.

Amazing.

We'll do it. We'll do it.

Robert (53:22)
I really appreciate it. Okay. Thank you. Hey, and

Lucas Krump (53:22)
Thank you, man. I appreciate you.

Robert (53:26)
thank you guys for listening to the dad to dad's podcast. You can find us on Apple or Spotify. you can also pretty much any, ⁓ any format, any platform that you listen to podcasts, you can find us on. can also find us on Instagram and YouTube. Don't forget to hit the like and subscribe button so you don't miss any episodes and look, feel free to leave comments. I love reading those. read every one of them and,

I love the feedback. I also love the ideas for future subjects as well. So keep doing that. And I look forward to talking to you all next time.