Be the f'n best at who you really are
An 8-month journey for men ready to weave their masculine initiative with their soul's whisper to lead a life worthy of a legacy
"I pole-vaulted across a chasm because of you all by seeing that I could lead something that actually mattered to me."
— John Jernigan
Do you know what is most important to you?
Is the way you spend your time, money, and attention a testament to this?
Are the actions you take on behalf of what's most important outwardly effective and deeply internally fulfilling?
If you're a no to any of these questions, this is for you.
"I didn't know what game I was playing. I was doing the wrong things right and the right things wrong."
— Lature Van Duren, Heart of Men Participant
"Before this program, my deepest fear was to die with my heart's work latent"
— John Jernigan, Heart of Men Participant
In my early 20s, I founded and ran a successful startup. I ended up selling the company after 8 years because I felt I was ultimately abandoning something precious in who I really was in my leadership.
I fled to the other end of the spectrum: 22 acres with a solar-powered, spring-fed abode in the Appalachian Mountains. I wrote the best poetry in my life in these years, but I ultimately felt stagnant, fragmented, and self-imploding as I had abandoned my ambition.
My life the past several years has been an experiment to take courageous, inspired action, on behalf of what's actually most important.
It's through this lens that I look out on the world and see:
1) Powerful men with impressive skillsets and initiatives who are not living what's actually most important to them OR
2) Brothers awake to the deeper currents of Life unable to take bold, consistent action in service.
Over the next 8 months, you are going to lead yourself into a life built around what's actually most important to you. In doing so, you're going to create the future worthy of our sons and daughters.
"I couldn't do the things I'm doing now that I've really wanted to for a long time because I didn't believe in who I was. With Heart of Men, I'm just starting to, and now I'm doing this stuff I actually love."
— Colin Olexa
"In essence, I know who I am in a way that I never have before. I can feel it. My wife and children can feel it. My employees can feel it."
— Justin Cole
"The qualities instilled in me through this journey are playing a major role in how I am a father and will forever shape the future of my children...it's been huge, so thank you, guys. I'll carry what I've learned here into the raising of these children, which is pretty awesome to think about."
Matt MacVitte
Heart of Men Participant
"I went from ruminating, solving and moving through the guidance of my mind to developing a relationship with my heart that cracked open a new world."
Nate Rubio
Heart of Men Participant
"This space exposes the truth amidst a complex world that keeps us shrouded in confusion and misdirection."
Jake Rosenberg
Heart of Men Participant
This brotherhood will not integrate all of your shadows. Nor will you leave these 8 months an enlightened man indefinitely beyond collapse, numbness, or distraction. You will still have bad days and hard moments.
But what I can promise: you will know what's most important and have the clarity, capacity, and courage to take consistent action on its behalf.
This is not the "men's work" you'll find in other places (I don't even call Heart of Men "men's work.") This is not "paint your face and get primal." Nor is it Robert Bly's mythopoetics. We don't sit in a fluorescent lit room in folding chairs and talk about our feelings. And it's not a space where men get together to be spiritually serious.
This journey feels much more like that hike you've always wanted to go in with your best dude friends to that mountaintop meadow. Where at the top you're feasted with honey wine and fire-braised Elk that you know you've earned.
"I want to acknowledge your fear and your resistance to opening up in this work and this transformation. Because Heart of Men will change your life, and you will wake up one day the kind of man you did not think was possible: connected, nourished, and free."
— Jakuen De La Paz
You are going to consistently move towards what's most important. You're going to learn to meet—and then ride—the dragons that present themselves along the way. You're going to fall down—more times than you think you want to—and learn to pick yourself and one another back up.
You are going to do scary things you've been waiting a decade to do and find that not only don't they kill you, they bring you enormous momentum. You're going to build a life where your time, money, and attention flows to what's actually most important. And in all this, together, we're going to create a new future.
By the end of these 8 months, "maybe, one day I'll finally…" is going to become "Holy shit, no training wheels, LOOK AT ME GO"
"The formatting of this journey was really awesome for me AND had a big impact. It allowed me to tune into something less cognitive - something beyond just me but also moving through me, like a current."
— Will Grim
"The in person retreats were masterful in my opinion; pacing, content, play, invitation without pressure, downtime, integration, all delicious and nurturing, and never was I unsure of the strong and capable hands that held me on the land."
— Jack Cowden
These 2.5 hour sessions weave Council, Curriculum, and Coaching. They will likely become some of your favorite moments of your month. Our first session is September 16th, and they are recorded.
We gather at an off-grid retreat sanctuary in the Appalachian mountains. Supported by star-lit skies, feasts of delicious, seasonal foods, and swims in spring-fed creeks, we make inevitable what was impossible on our own.
Homework supports you in taking the clarity from our work together into your everyday life through practices and rituals—some of which will stay with you the rest of your life. On average, 10 minutes a day is adequate for you to get a lot from these invitations.
"I pole-vaulted across a chasm because of you guys by seeing that I could lead something that actually mattered to me. I'm astonished by where I am right now compared to 8 months ago. Even if you had given me a cheat sheet with how to do all this, there's no way I could have without this"
John Jernigan
Heart of Men Participant
"Heart of Men has been one of the clearest mirrors I've had. Through this work I've discovered that what I'm here to do — what genuinely lights me up — is working with men and young men. And I'm not just feeling it — I'm actually stepping into it."
Lature Van Duren
Heart of Men Participant
"I came to this community in the same year after I had completed a divorce from my 13-year-long marriage. I thought I was doing well after my divorce. I wasn't. Through my journey with Heart of Men, I experienced a version of masculinity that I had never made contact with before."
Colin Olexa
Heart of Men Participant
This journey will ask a real devotion from your time, money, and attention. And what you put in, you will receive back ten-fold. Acceptance into Living Leadership is by application given the intimate nature of the program.
+ $925/mo starting September 16th
This is for brothers standing at a significant creative threshold who want additional, tailored support for their business launch, artistic endeavor, or pivotal life passage. I will only be working with two brothers in this capacity. By application.
+ $1625/mo starting October 16th
"There have been two programs I've participated in over the past six years that cost four figures. Each program, at the time, was 25%+ of my monthly income. The only reason you're reading these words and have the choice to join something that will change the trajectory of your life in Heart of Men is because I made those two bets on myself. They felt crazy at the time, and it's only in hindsight I can see that something in me knew they would bear 10x the fruits of what I paid for them."
Thomas Doochin
Heart of Men Founder
From
Waiting Until You're "Healed"
To
Giving and Living Your Gift Now
From
Self-Improvement
To
Belonging and Devotion as the Ground From Which you Grow
From
Learning Old Models
To
Witnessing and Embodying a Living Masculinity
From
Peak Experience
To
Steady, Warming Fire that Lasts
From
Lonely and Exhaustive Climb Up
To
Deepest Belly Laughs and Best Meals of the Year
From
Guru / Shaman
To
Circle Itself as the Source of Truth
"Heart of Men is becoming a central fire for me in my life even outside of the programs because of the relationships I have gained during the programs. What feels special to me is the longevity I feel from being part of the groups. Other offerings I have been in feel like a one and done thing but this feels like I am becoming part of a family."
Cameron Allen
Heart of Men Participant
"I left this program less interested in performing masculinity and more interested in living truthfully. This work matters because most men have spent their lives learning how to succeed, protect, compete, and provide, but very few have learned how to truly be themselves. Heart of Men creates a space where men can stop pretending, tell the truth, and reconnect with who they actually are."
Lane Rankin
Heart of Men Participant
"The friendships I've developed with these brothers who took the journey with me I'll cherish for my lifetime. Through this council I've found a home in my body, safety in loving and being loved by a healthy masculine connection I've never witnessed, the release of these traumas and dark clouds I thought would follow me forever."
Dominic Tovar
Heart of Men Participant
