a newsletter for men who want more

ISSUE 01 |11.08.24

Find your heart.

Do you remember the Tin Man’s quest to find a heart on the road to see the Wizard of Oz? At the beginning of the film he was stuck—frozen in place and waiting for someone to unlock him so he could live again. At the end of the film (spoiler alert) he discovers that he had a heart all along, he just needed help recognizing and naming it.

Many men I’ve worked with over the years are like the Tin Man. They feel stuck, frozen, unable to access or name the desires and feelings of their hearts. I often hear something along the lines of “I don’t really know what I’m feeling most of the time and I have no idea what to do with it.” Sometimes we’ve even been told that the best way to live and lead well is to ignore our hearts and stick with what we know. The problem with that strategy is that we don’t become less emotional, we just become less aware. Our anger, anxiety, and disappointment become evident to everyone around us but ourselves.

If you suspect you might be frozen like the Tin Man, if you find it hard to access your desires and fears, your joys, and sorrows, if you never learned what to do with what you feel, there is good news: you can get unstuck.

You may not have gotten the best tools for emotion awareness or intelligence in your past, but it’s not too late to learn. This issue of The Second Mountain is going to give you some concrete tools to help you grow in emotional and relational health. Men who can access their hearts and learn to process their desires, fears, anxieties, uncertainties, frustrations, and even their joys and achievements will become better leaders, husbands, friends, and fathers. The people you love and lead will thank you for it.

My goal is not to give you a new law or set of rules to follow so that you’ll know the “right way” to process your inner world. My hope is that you find your heart and live a fuller life of joy, purpose, and connection, even when you get it “wrong”—when you shut down, say the wrong thing, blow up, or seek your own comfort. Wherever you are on that quest, keep going. It’s worth it.

All the best,

Joshua

EMOTIONAL FITNESS

What Do You Do with Your Feelings?

Every journey needs a map. Every construction project needs a blueprint. Yet when it comes to our emotional lives, we often wing it. What do you do win winging it doesn’t work?

The link below gives us a simple paradigm for processing emotions. I’ve given you the cliff notes version in a blog post, but the real gold is in the podcast The Best of You, by Dr. Alison Cook. It’s especially helpful for learning how to process emotions in relationships without demanding that the other person fix you. Click below to read or listen.

Best Line: “Why bother going through the motions of all the work it takes to be with other humans if we are not actually showing up in a meaningful way?”

Takeaway: Recognize, understand, manage, and effectively express your emotions in order to show up better in life and relationships.

MARRIAGE & RELATIONSHIPS

Why Date Nights Are Not Enough

When we feel disconnected in marriage we tend to reach for the tools we have in our tool bag. When we are stressed and spread thin, this means we often start a fight, subconsciously settling for negative connection over no connection. When we’ve got some energy in the tank, we might text a babysitter and get a date night on the calendar.

Do you ever wonder if there’s more you can do for your marriage than the occasional dinner out? Date nights are great, but they often fail to bring the connection we need, and not just because we spend the night talking about the kids or other stressors (ways to fix this will be in a future newsletter). The reason is simple: real, lasting connection in marriage is not forged in grand gestures but in the ordinary, daily grind of life. At the kitchen counter, getting dressed in the morning, driving to a soccer game, walking out the door—this is where connection is built and sustained. The marriage experts over at the Gottman Institute call these daily interactions “bids.”

Takeaway: If you want to do one thing for your marriage today, learn to recognize, initiate, and respond to bids. This two-minute video based on the Gottman’s research will give you what you need to know to get started. By the way—bids are essential for all relationships, including fathering and leading teams. If you want to lead and communicate well in any relationship, this skill is a must.

You Need an Adventure

Are you stuck in a rut? Struggling to find joy in work and family life? According to happiness expert Arthur Brooks writing in The Atlantic, you may need an adventure.

Best Line: “Almost everyone knows the first line of Herman Melville’s 1851 masterpiece Moby-Dick: “Call me Ishmael.” Fewer people may remember what comes next—which might just be some of the best advice ever given to chase away a bit of depression:

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet … then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can…

Your adventure should have a goal, it is true, but it is called a hero’s journey for a reason. Happiness comes not from the blip that is a moment of victory but from the long arc of living, learning, and loving. That is the best cure for a damp, drizzly November in your soul.”

Takeaway: If you don’t have one already, find a hobby or adventure that will challenge and reward you. If possible, pick something that can be done with others or passed down to your children. Learn to frame loving your wife, raising children, or grieving loss as a quest, and remember that even failure is a part of the hero’s arc. Cultivating adventure—whether literal or figurative—can be a great way to invest in your mental and emotional health.

THE SECOND MOUNTAIN