Speaker 1: 0:00

You're listening to the Evolved Men Podcast, episode number four. Are you ready to break free from hesitation, self-doubt and isolation? Do you want to lead with confidence, build powerful connections and live boldly? I'm Cory Baum and I'm here to share the most impactful strategies and mindsets that I've learned through coaching, leadership and real-world experience. Together, we'll forge unshakable confidence, master social dynamics and create a life rooted in purpose, brotherhood and bold action. Inside you'll get the tools and insights to become the strongest, most connected version of yourself. Let's dive in.

Speaker 1: 0:39

Welcome to the Evolved Men Podcast. I'm your host, cory Baum. This is where we talk about the real work of becoming the man that you were made to be. Today, I want to sit with a question that most men never have been asked, or, if they have, they answered it with someone else's voice. And that question is this what does being a man mean to you? And that question can land like a stone. For some, it can bring up silence, confusion, maybe resistance. It's not a question with a clean, clear answer for most of us, but here's what I know If you don't define what being a man means for you, then you'll end up performing someone else's version of it. If you don't choose it consciously, you'll just absorb it by default, usually from the culture, your family or whatever you saw growing up. And if you don't lead yourself into manhood on your own terms, you'll always feel like you've got something to prove right. So today we're not going to talk about what you're supposed to be. We're going to talk about what it means to be a man on your own terms real terms, and what happens when you start living like that.

Speaker 1: 1:58

There's a moment in almost every man's life where something doesn't sit quite right. He might not have the words for it, but he can feel it. It shows up as that low, restless hum that you just can't shake, Like something's missing but you can't quite name it. Like you're moving but not actually going anywhere. Numb, disconnected, pushing hard but with no clear reason why. He's doing everything that he's supposed to do. He's showing up providing, maybe even succeeding, but something is just off inside. And here's what I've seen over and over again that man isn't broken, he's just in conflict. He's in conflict with a version of manhood that he never chose. Maybe that's you, or maybe you've felt that version of yourself in the past. It doesn't matter how old you are, how much you've achieved or what stage of life that you're in. If you don't consciously define what it means to be a man, your life will become this ongoing audition. So let's pause the performance, let's get under the noise and let's rebuild something honest.

Speaker 1: 3:15

Let me offer you a lens. Most men are walking around with an inherited, unexamined or outdated definition of manhood and they're measuring themselves against it every single day without even realizing it. That definition might come from your father, your stepdad, a military figure or coach, maybe social media or movies or music, religious upbringing or simply the absence of a male role model altogether. It might say the real men don't cry. The real men never ask for help. The real men keep their families afloat. Real men have lots of sex. Real men don't get tired, or real men just push through.

Speaker 1: 4:07

Now, was all of that wrong? No, not necessarily right. Some of it has real value strength, commitment, direction. But the problem is this If your definition of manhood isn't yours, then you'll never be at peace with it. You'll be acting, you'll be performing, trying to measure up instead of rising from within, and there's a difference between being admired and being anchored. So here's the deeper invitation let's stop chasing a title invitation. Let's stop chasing a title. Let's stop auditioning for approval. Let's walk through the three versions of manhood that show up in nearly every man's life so that you can see where you're living from and what it might look like to lead yourself forward. There's three patterns that I see again and again in the men that I've coached. And they're not labels, they're not boxes right, they're mirrors, and they should be used that way. The first version is the inherited man.

Speaker 1: 5:17

Most of us didn't choose the kind of man that we became. Not at first. We learned it by watching, by absorbing, by surviving, and it probably happened early. You didn't sit down at 16 and write out a code of masculinity for yourself. You just became what you saw. You got rewarded for what kept you safe. Maybe it was the strong, silent type, maybe it was the responsible one, the provider, the do-it-all-yourself man, or maybe it was the guy who didn't rock the boat, who kept the peace, who made sure that everyone else was okay, even if he wasn't.

Speaker 1: 5:57

You learn that some parts of you weren't welcome and that some weren't Anger. Maybe that was dangerous Sadness, that was weak Tenderness. It's too much Curiosity, a distraction. Love, sure, only, but if only it didn't make you soft, right. So you learned that took the parts of yourself away. You adjusted, you performed, you made it work and, let's be honest, some of that worked.

Speaker 1: 6:27

For a while you built a life. You held it together and, let's be honest, some of that worked. For a while you built the life you held it together, maybe even got pretty far, but eventually something just feels off, not broken, just tight, right, small, like a version of you that hasn't grown in years. It shows up in the quiet and the tension that you carry in your chest and the way that you hesitate to speak, what's really on your mind and how exhausted that you are from holding it all together. And you start to feel the gap, the gap between the man that you are and the man that you're actually allowed to be. And the more that you notice it, the harder it is to unsee. You look around and you realize that most of this identity that you didn't actually choose, you just inherited it and maybe it helped you survive for a time, but it won't help you become whole, because the man that you inherited can only carry so much. He was built for a different season. He's missing parts of you, real parts, your wonder, your softness, your full range of emotions and somewhere inside this quiet question starts to grow Is this really who I am, or just who I was trained to be? And that question, that's the beginning of something new.

Speaker 1: 7:54

So the second version is the performed man. This guy isn't asleep at the wheel, he's awake, he's been doing the work, or at least he's been trying to. He reads the books, he's gone to the workshops, he's had a few breakthroughs, he knows enough to see what he inherited around manhood and to see that it doesn't work anymore, that it's outdated, it's narrow, that it doesn't fit the full weight of who he is. And yet, instead of tearing it down and asking like, what do I actually believe? What do I actually want, he just trades it in for a newer, shinier model, something more conscious, seemingly upgraded version of masculinity. And it looks good, right? He starts saying all the right things, he stops numbing out, he builds routines, he takes cold showers. He stops numbing out, he builds routines, he takes cold showers, he tracks macros, he does breath work, he talks about purpose, he shows up strong and he leads with this masculine energy. And don't get me wrong, none of that's bad.

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The problem is that it's still just a performance. It's still about doing what he thinks he should do, to be a man still chasing some image of what's right. The pressure hasn't necessarily gone away. It's just been dressed up. He's no longer trying to be the tough guy, the provider, the stoic rock like his dad was. Now he's trying to be the conscious leader, the grounded king, the integrated alpha Some same chase, just a different costume.

Speaker 1: 9:36

And here's the hardest part Even when it works, when people admire him, when women are drawn to him, when he starts making money or getting recognition, it still doesn't land. It still doesn't feel like his Because deep down, it's still not coming from within, it's not rooted. It's effortful, sure, right, like holding up a structure that keeps swaying. He feels it in quiet moments when the routines break or the feedback stops or no one's watching, that subtle question of what am I actually doing this? For? Who am I trying to impress? What would it be like to stop performing and just be me? And the truth is he doesn't know, because he's built a life on looking the part. He's become so good at being the man that he's supposed to be that he hasn't actually stopped to ask it if he even wants to be that man.

Speaker 1: 10:41

And here's the thing. This isn't failure, this is the edge. This is the moment where things start to crack open, because when the performance starts to feel empty, that's not a sign that something's wrong. It's a sign that something real is ready to come through. He doesn't need to hustle for his worth. He doesn't need to be impressive to be powerful. He needs to start listening to the deeper voice inside of him, the one that isn't chasing approval or scripting every move, the one that already knows who he is if he's willing to just stop performing long enough to hear it. That's where authority starts, not the kind that you earn from others, the kind that you build inside.

Speaker 1: 11:35

So the third version is the evolved man. You don't meet this man every day, not because he's better than anyone else, but because the road to becoming him is quiet, internal, not about status, not about show. He's not about chasing validation. He's just done abandoning himself. This man has stopped performing, stopped pretending, stopped bending himself into whatever version of masculinity the world hands him. He's not trying to prove that he's strong, because he knows that he is, because he's faced his own darkness. He's failed. He's taken real hits and he didn't run. He stayed in the fire long enough to learn from it. That's what makes him different, not that he's unshakable, but that he's not afraid to be shaken and still stand in who he is.

Speaker 1: 12:35

He doesn't need to dominate a room, but at the same time he won't disappear either. He knows how to hold space and he knows how to hold a boundary, not with force, but with clarity. He doesn't suppress emotion, he just doesn't outsource it either. Right, he's learned to feel the full range of grief and joy, rage and love and stay steady inside of it. He's learned that strength without heart is hollow and that sensitivity without spine just won't hold. He listens, not to wait his turn, but to actually hear. He speaks when it matters, and when he does, you feel it, not because it's loud, but because it's true.

Speaker 1: 13:27

This man doesn't lead with bravado, he leads with presence, and presence doesn't require explanation, it doesn't need applause, it's just felt. And here's the thing that most men don't really realize that he didn't become this way overnight. He didn't take a course, check the boxes and arrive right. He chose this over and over. In the dark, in the doubt, in the slow, the unforeseen moments, when no one was watching. He let go of the performance, he laid down the armor and he built something better in its place.

Speaker 1: 14:06

Integrity, because the evolved man isn't perfect. He's whole. He knows where he's strong, he knows where he's still learning. He knows where he's still learning, and he's honest about both. He doesn't shrink, but he doesn't posture either. He doesn't need to win every room that he walks into, but when he walks in, something shifts, not because he demands respect, but because he respects himself. This is what real leadership feels like Not loud, not showy, but grounded and steady and clear. And when you're around a man like that, you don't feel smaller, you feel safer, more honest, more at home in yourself, and that's the ripple of an evolved man. He doesn't just change his life, he changes the space around him.

Speaker 1: 15:05

So let's stop here for a second, because I want to ask you directly who taught you what it means to be a man? What do you really think about that? I want you to really take a moment and ponder that. What did they say, either directly or indirectly? What did you witness? What did they reward? What did they punish? What did you decide that you had to be in order to be good enough as a man? And now are you still living under that definition? Is it shaping your choices, your relationships, your reactions? Does it leave room for your actual truth? And if it doesn't, are you willing to choose something new?

Speaker 1: 15:57

So here's where everything changes. You don't become a man by ticking off boxes. You don't become a man by acting confident, sounding strong or copying someone else's idea of what leadership looks like. You become a man when you stop outsourcing it, when you stop performing and you start listening, when you stop reaching out and start turning inward, and that's when things shift, because manhood isn't something that you earn, it's not a prize, it's not a role that you graduate into after enough pain or reps or gold stars. It's a relationship, a relationship with yourself, with truth, with responsibility, and, like any real relationship, it's alive. It grows when you show up for it, it deepens when you're honest and it strengthens when you stop hiding. Being a man isn't a destination, it's a practice, and it's how you respond when things fall apart. It's how you carry yourself when no one is watching. It's the moment that you choose courage over comfort, not for show, but because it's the right thing to do. The more honest that you get, the clearer it becomes. The more aligned that you are with what actually matters to you, the less that you need to prove you stop chasing and you start embodying, and that's when everything starts to change.

Speaker 1: 17:36

So here's what I want you to do this week. It's simple, but it's far from easy. I want you to take 10 minutes no distractions, no noise, no social media, no music, just you, a pen and a piece of paper and this one question what does being a man mean to me right now, in this season of my life? And I want you to write it out Not what you think you should say, not what sounds noble, not what you'd post on Instagram. What does it actually mean to you today?

Speaker 1: 18:17

And then look at how you're living, look at your calendar, your relationships, your energy, your habits, your thoughts, your posture, your tone, your inner dialogue and how you talk to yourself and ask yourself am I living in alignment with the man that I say? That I am? And that question isn't there to shame you. It's there to invite you, because you get to choose again Right now, right here. That's leadership, that's freedom and that is manhood. All right, guys. So that's what I've got for this episode of A Man's Guide to Self-Mastery. It's a really powerful place to start, and if you want to talk through what's showing up for you in your life right now, book a free discovery call with me. We'll get real about what it is that you want and what it's going to take to become the man that you're meant to be Always.

Speaker 1: 19:23

Guys, leave a five-star review, follow this show and share it with someone, and if something in this episode sparks something for you, drop a comment. I read every one of them and that's how this message spreads, one man at a time. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Evolved Men Podcast. If today's episode challenged you, inspired you or gave you something to think about, don't stop here. Keep building, keep evolving. Head over to wwwevolvedmenprojectcom, where you'll find free resources on confidence, leadership, relationships, communication and personal power Everything you need to start applying what you've learned here and take your growth to the next level. The tools are there. The next move is yours. Until the next time, men, stay strong, lead powerfully and live boldly.