Redefining Strength and Vulnerability with Pellegrino Riccardi

[00:00:00] Hector: Fellas, welcome to another episode. I hope this episode finds you well, as well as you can be. And today's episode is a, it's a real one, it's a raw one, and it's necessary and, and that's because men for so long have been forced to. Deal, work with, navigate this emotional world that we live in without the tools.

[00:00:26] Hector: And it's like being thrown out to sea without a compass, without a boat, without a, you know, a paddle and just being forced to figure out your way. And that's a lot about what we talk about today, in today's episode is with Pellegrino Riccardi and, He's someone who is, is really on that path and on that mission to, to help men create a, a safer space for them to feel comfortable in their own bodies.

[00:00:49] Hector: And we talk about kind of the narrow range of emotions that men are supposed to expose or share, or have, and kind of the societal constraints that come along with that. So, Wherever you're at. If this is something that you think is important to you, I'm excited that it's coming. If it doesn't seem that relevant to you, come at it with an open mind and see where you might be pushing away, suppressing, forgetting, ignoring the things that are perhaps most important to us.

[00:01:25] Hector: So without further ado, this is Pellegrino Rickard.

[00:01:29] Hector: Pellegrino, welcome to the Modern Masculinity Show. Thanks for being here today, man.

[00:01:33] Pellegrino: Pleasure. Thanks for having me in. Great to be.

[00:01:35] Hector: our first question for all of our guests is really, we just cut to the mustard, I'd love to know what's real and present. What's a challenge or a struggle that you're going through as a, man, a, father, a husband?

[00:01:47] Hector: real for you right now?

[00:01:48] Pellegrino: me personally, right now,

[00:01:50] Pellegrino: I work for myself. I'm a public speaker, and the public speaking calendar goes in waves. Very intense and very not intense, and last year was crazy busy. Wonderful. I'm going through this spell now where there's very little work and I'm trying not to let it get to me.

[00:02:06] Pellegrino: While at the same time, I'm trying to understand why it gets to me without going into the details of my finances. I don't need the income, but it makes me feel inadequate. If I'm really honest, I'm not doing my job and I've got air quotes. Now, my job is to make this family feel safe, and one of the ways I do it is to earn money for the family because I am the sole.

[00:02:27] Pellegrino: Provider in terms of financials and yeah, I'm sitting here going, you know, it's fine. It chills it. The wave will come again. The wave will come again and I can't help feeling as if I don't have a role, which then irritates me because, come on, there must be more, to me, there are more facets to Pellegrin or Ricardi than just being a provider.

[00:02:47] Hector: what's interesting is, my, son is four, and the only reason is, I'm tracing it back here, is because perhaps there's some thread where. He gets bored and his boredom, what's really interesting is it turns to frustration or it turns to, ire or to anger. And he can't sit in that boredom.

[00:03:05] Hector: and I tell him, it's okay to be bored.

[00:03:07] Hector: what I'm curious about is just, it seems to be there from the very beginning where. There is this need or this drive to

[00:03:16] Pellegrino: Be useful. Yeah. To do. Right.

[00:03:19] Pellegrino: And then, and then, I mean, it's a cliche, but then we're not, being human beings. We're being human doings. Right. just being, just being, rather than doing all the time. And what gets me about your son there is why does he respond with anger?

[00:03:32] Pellegrino: Of all the emotionshe could use or make use of.

[00:03:37] Pellegrino: He turns to anger. He's not alone as a man,

[00:03:40] Pellegrino: because anger is a really legitimate feeling amongst men, isn't it? It's fine. Angry is cool. Angry is legitimate. Angry is cool. Angry shows power, angry shows, action proactivity. I'm gonna do something about it. And how do we do that? I'm gonna get angry. Let's get angry and everything, then something will happen.

[00:03:59] Pellegrino: Magically.

[00:04:00] Hector: I'm curious cuz I was on a call with, we call it a band. It's a small group of guys and we meet every couple of weeks and we

[00:04:05] Hector: just, hold space for each other to unload,

[00:04:08] Hector: whatever's going on. and one of the things that came up is we had a guy in the, group who had a, really tragic.

[00:04:15] Hector: anniversary, andhe has so much anger and, he's throwing out this anger at the universe or God or whoever it is. and what I asked him is because haven't experienced the, depth of the severity of, his tragedy.

[00:04:27] Hector: But in the, challenges that I've had and, when I get anger, I find myself asking those same questions. but one of the questions that I ask is, why, why am I getting anger? what does this serve? And I'm curious if you think there is a higher purpose to anger, or why, yes, it is accepted but how can men perhaps utilize or channel or see a higher value in, something like that?

[00:04:50] Pellegrino: I work in the area of human behavior, and communication. And there's something called wtf, which isn't what most people think WTF is in behavioral terms. WTF is. What the fun, meaning, what's the function of the behavior? Every behavior has a function, so there's no such thing as a bad behavior.

[00:05:13] Pellegrino: It has a function, and the reason we get angry as human beings is a function is because it raises the testosterone. It makes us stronger Then we turn to action. There's the reason for it, What becomes a problem is prolonged anger or anger we can't control or anger that doesn't go away.

[00:05:29] Pellegrino: It just sits inside your spine and your nervous system, that's a problem. So behavior and every feeling and emotion has a function, but it needs to be regulated, right? And that's where the emotional intelligence part comes in. So anger isn't bad per se, but anger in the wrong place or prolonged anger can be a problem.

[00:05:49] Hector: Yeah, one of the themes, you bring up the ability to, function or navigate these emotions, and I think that's something that men are challenged with because theydon't have the language.

[00:06:00] Pellegrino: It's like looking at. Arabic or Chinese. When you don't speak Arabic or Chinese, it's just What am I looking at? For some men and some women too, but in my experience, predominantly men, we just don't know the language. You don't know how to express a simple feeling. How are you doing today? I'm good. What's up? I'm good. Yeah, I've been kicking it, killing it, kicking it, killing it. Angry things, right?

[00:06:27] Pellegrino: Crushing it. It's all power all the time, isn't it? I've got a group of friends as well, we hang around with, and I've got this little experiment going on at the moment where I'm trying to get them to describe what they're feeling.

[00:06:38] Pellegrino: It's really difficult and at the point now where they kind of make fun of me, but take me seriously as well, but they're also on their guard. Be careful what you say to Pellegrino. He might turn it into something in his talks or he'll put it in his next book.

[00:06:53] Pellegrino: they're they're not completely wrong but they've got this clumsiness about expressing what they feel. They can talk, can be analytical. They're very intelligent men, they're educated, good jobs, but digging down inside, And actually pulling something out inside that they really feel deep down using a spectrum of words that describe feelings, that's quite difficult.

[00:07:15] Hector: Well, I've found, doing some of this work that the emotions are. painful or it's much less painful to move into a different emotion. like, I realized that. Whenever I was sad, it would quickly turn to anger because that anger was, easier to, deal with and sit with.

[00:07:33] Hector: And perhaps I even had, mechanisms to process that anger. And then I didn't have that for sadness, was only in recently where I would, Catch myself. why am I angry? It's like, oh, I was sad. And that very quickly shifted. And I think that self-awareness it's lacking,

[00:07:48] Pellegrino: but again, it's because angry is okay with men. Angry is good, sad, not so good. what's the reaction to sad? You know, pull yourself together. Cheer up, chin up. the UK where I was raised. Stiff upper a lip. Come on, pull yourself together. But angry is okay cuz angry means action.

[00:08:06] Pellegrino: I'm gonna do something about it. You know what the fuck I'm gonna get. Yeah, I dunno if you are aware of something called the feelings wheel. Have you heard of the feelings wheel?

[00:08:14] Hector: I was just gonna bring it up. Yeah.

[00:08:15] Pellegrino: Oh, you got the same thing? I love it. I don't know the whole, but those basic emotions in the middle, like, they're like angry, sad, happy, bad.

[00:08:22] Pellegrino: I can't remember the others now surprised, but then they all expand into more nuanced words to mean the same thing. Why don't we all know the feelings will by heart.

[00:08:31] Hector: well to that. Yes. And that really helped me you know, there were times where I was in the middle of a funk and I'd have to look at the wheel to say, okay, what is this? and the

[00:08:40] Hector: more nuance, you know, it helps. But, what I've also realized is that most of the feelings on there, outside of a few, are uncomfortable.

[00:08:48] Hector: even some of the positive emotions have uncomfortable parts to it. and I think a lot of men subconsciously move to the things that are most comfortable with us. And we somehow end up in our way, into the anger channel or into whatever channel we're most

[00:09:04] Pellegrino: Yeah, right. Uncomfortable accepted is comfortable as well. It's accepted, therefore I go there. But try and go to another part of this wide range of feelings. Try and go somewhere like, I don't know, joyful, that word. Joyful. Joyful. And what, whatof reaction would you get if someone said, how's it going?

[00:09:23] Pellegrino: I'm feeling joyful today. followed by a quick fist bump. Yeah, man. Joyful,

[00:09:29] Hector: Well, to your point, if a guy said that typically I might look at him a little funny, traditionally

[00:09:35] Hector: I might go that that's a little strange.

[00:09:37] Pellegrino: Yeah, right, right. It's like, ah. I'm looking at the wheel now. Actually I'm cheating. I've pulled the, wheel up here. You know,how's it going? And, they say, I'm feeling fragile today.

[00:09:49] Pellegrino: How about that for a response? Fragile

[00:09:51] Pellegrino: Bean. One of the same in the same area.

[00:09:54] Pellegrino: Sad. Instead of sad, I'm feeling fragile.

[00:09:56] Pellegrino: Oh.

[00:09:57] Pellegrino: right. Look at that reaction. There's something in us, there's men that goes, come on man. Pick another word. Pick another word. Please. Say you say despair or depressed, or just say sad man. What's with, the fragile? You know,

[00:10:11] Hector: Well, what comes up as you're saying this, is I learned the hard way that I should not be dumping my unprocessed emotions on my family. my wife is not there to receive.

[00:10:22] Hector: that. If I am sad, if I am in despair, that's okay, but

[00:10:27] Hector: That's not her load to bear.

[00:10:29] Pellegrino: no.

[00:10:30] Pellegrino: you could also explain what you're feeling without unloading, surely.

[00:10:33] Hector: for sure,

[00:10:34] Hector: but where I was going and,what you've hinting at is The place where you can unload that is a group of men that can hold that. I'm sure that there are women that can hold that too,

[00:10:45] Hector: but most easily you're gonna find that in a space of men who are able to take that and hold that for you so that you can process it and then come back to your family or come back to whoever without all the rawness

[00:10:58] Hector: there.

[00:10:59] Pellegrino: Well, let me challenge you on that then, Hector. All right.I agree with you with most of this wheel, but there's one part of the wheel I think men find extremely difficult to explore, and that's the fearful channel. How often do we hear our group of friends, one of our friends, saying something like, I'm feeling, I'm feeling worthless.

[00:11:16] Pellegrino: I'm feeling insignificant. I feel threatened. Or the big one? The big one. I feel weak.

[00:11:23] Pellegrino: I'm feeling weak. What? What do you mean weak? No weak. I can't, I can't take it. I can't handle life. I'm feeling weak. Right. That's where it gets really interesting thing.

[00:11:32] Hector: Right. and hopefully these types of conversations will make those types of conversations more possible, more real, right? Because the simple act of unloading that. can be the difference, In a place where it's, received and in a place where, strength is given back, and the problem was, is I did not have that.

[00:11:51] Hector: I didn't have that space and it took me joining a dad's group and it took me getting involved and it took me going deep it took a

[00:11:58] Hector: series of uncomfortable steps to finally be able to be in there, whereas the guys that I hung out with high school, or the guys that we see, when we're the kids to the pool,

[00:12:07] Hector: at least currently is not the place where that can happen.

[00:12:11] Pellegrino: And, what makes what you do even more important is the fact that you are doing it. it takes a lot of courage to do that as well. A lot of courage. and it feels, I dare to use the word wrong, it just feels a bit wrong, doesn't it? That I'm doing this now. It's so important to have those conversations.

[00:12:28] Hector: Well,

[00:12:28] Hector: it feels like why, why did it take so long for me to realize this? and why

[00:12:32] Pellegrino: Because you're not you're not seeing it enough well, let me ask you another question. where are the role models for doing that? I certainly didn't get it from my father. my father would never have these conversations. He would never have these conversations, so I didn't learn it from anybody.

[00:12:48] Pellegrino: And then I look around my uncles and my cousins. I didn't learn it from them either. wasn't modeling it anyway. I wasn't copying it anyway. I had to back to the Chinese and the Arabic. It was like learning a new language. I had to learn from scratch. How do I do this?

[00:13:01] Hector: Will you bring up another theme that's come up on these conversations in the sense that we are not living in our, fathers or our grandfather's time anymore. the fathering, being a husband, being a father, being a, provider. All of those things are so, Different than our fathers and our grandfathers, that we can't take their models into today's world and expect to, succeed or thrive or, even get away with it, even in some instances.

[00:13:27] Pellegrino: Well, at least we can take some of their world into it, but not all of it. Not all of it. but on that one there, I mean, I see myself since you ask what my role as a man, as a husband and a father.

[00:13:39] Pellegrino: I'm basically a habit breaker. I'm changing, I'm breaking the chain, I'm breaking the chain that was handed down the d n a chain of how we deal with problems. How we deal with threats. how, as a man we deal with feeling inadequate and I'm trying to break that chain by doing something new and it, not comfortable.

[00:13:57] Pellegrino: and like I say, my friends, they do respect me for it, but they kind of make fun of me. They can't help making fun of me. You know, I'm the sensitive one. But you know, in our last. Little outing we did our last weekend, one of the guys, we'd had a few drinks and we were talking and one of them said the deepest thing I'd ever heard from any of them.

[00:14:14] Pellegrino: He said, if I came to the Pearl Gates, and St. Peter asked me, which part of your life would you live again? Do you know what I'd say to him? I'd say none of it, cuz it was all too boring. Wow, where did that come from? So the guy is basically saying, my life is, boring. It doesn't really excite me apart from a couple of really passing moments, I'd never knew that about him.

[00:14:37] Pellegrino: And you would never guess it to look at the guy, nicest guy on the planet. Funny. Cool guy, and then this where did that come from? And I loved it. and then we started and we are away. It took a while to break that ice, but those are the conversations we should be looking for. And it's not just about showing weakness and vulnerability, I'm just saying that that is a hard thing to do for most men,

[00:14:56] Hector: well, yeah. and it's so backwards because in those conversations you end up realizing How in solidarity you actually are. There's so much of, going through the same thing, there's so much relatability in that, guys miss out on because they tried to have this image or this, face or whatever it is that prevents them from actually, connecting on a deeper level and actually being stronger through it.

[00:15:20] Hector: it's interesting because, I think about my dad and the way that he connected with his friends. and he came in from a pretty rough upbringing. so there was a very machismo attitude to it. but. at the detriment, I think of his emotional wellbeing, right?

[00:15:35] Hector: Like I look at, some of the things that it created and, I hope that younger people can see the advantage of, being in communion and community with, like that.

[00:15:43] Pellegrino: and also we shouldn't underestimate how difficult it is. You know, it's not a case of just do it. it's not a Nike advert. It's not just do it. You have to start somewhere and learn like anything else. I just had this thing happen in our family. Now I'm gonna share a little story with you. So my 11 year old daughter, she has a, dwarf hamster, which is a hamster, but much, much smaller, cutest thing on the planet.

[00:16:05] Pellegrino: And, We just had to put her down. Actually, she got a tumor in her leg, which was cancerous and that's it. Yvette said, sorry, but this is going, and we'd noticed that her leg wasn't well, but she'd never. Displayed any signs that anything was wrong with her. And that's when the vet explained to us that hamsters are animals of prey and your survival depends on one thing.

[00:16:32] Pellegrino: It's never showing any weakness or vulnerability in nature. Otherwise, you are an easy for the predator. So this hamster was hiding its pain. For possibly months, and we had no idea. And by the time we did have an idea, in other words, her leg, the tumor got so big we couldn't ignore it. It was too late.

[00:16:53] Hector: That's men right there.

[00:16:54] Pellegrino: right?

[00:16:55] Pellegrino: That's men right there. Because we feel if we show any weakness now, the predators around me are gonna get me. So I'm gonna pretend I'm okay. in the end, it will kill you.

[00:17:07] Hector: perhaps though, perhaps that was true,

[00:17:11] Hector: It was true once. Of course It was

[00:17:13] Pellegrino: It was true.

[00:17:14] Hector: right. I think that there's some really interesting things that's, are happening with men and, and we are, I think, blessed to be living at, this time of transformation because for the longest time, It was men's duty to go out of the home and push the frontiers to settle and colonize and, there was new land to be settled.

[00:17:34] Hector: And so our energy was directed outward. we've just hit the point where, Everything has been settled and there's no more land to go out and conquer necessarily. the next frontier, I believe is at home. And I think that's why so many men are, being, I don't wanna say forced into their roles at home, but I think it's actually a natural evolution while women are having this, rise in their, careers and whatever.

[00:17:57] Hector: men are spending more time at home. I'm doing it and so maybe I'm just trying to rationalize it, but I'm looking at what is, the value in this, what's the, grander thing that's happening here where men can now bring

[00:18:09] Hector: the positive aspects of masculinity to the home, which it's been missing for, so long, perhaps.

[00:18:14] Pellegrino: which is the dilemma of modern masculinity because modern masculinity isn't about, denying the past, not at all. But it's, how can we adapt it to today's world? that is a really tricky job, isn't it? To find that balance. How do we do that? That's what I feel I'm struggling with every day.

[00:18:31] Pellegrino: But the home, I mean, my father, I'm the son of immigrants, right? So my father moved from Italy and my mother from Italy to the uk, they didn't integrate very well. Their language skills were terrible. Their English was awful. So it didn't take long before they became outsiders working, earning, but never part of society, not really. And what I found was that my father just got treated. like an idiot most of the time because of his low education, his language skills, or lack of language skills. And so the only place where he felt he could be of any use and be significant was at home. And how could he best do that imposing his power on everybody. And by getting angry a lot of the time, the anger I'm, you know, nobody's taking my home. This is my home. Right. and it wasn't just violent anger, it was also subtle things like we never ate English food always at Italian food. At least when he was in the house when he was working, my mother would sneak in the fish and chips and the English boot.

[00:19:32] Pellegrino: For us. Because we were British Italians. We went to English schools. We were basically English, and then we'd come home and we'd be in Italy again, and everything in our house was Italian. The only thing that wasn't Italian was the tv. That's his way of imposing his power. you can make fun of me and ridicule me, me, in public, he would say, but not in my house. That need to just be significant, dominant, strong.

[00:19:56] Hector: One of my favorite books, and I'm, rereading it right now, is, King, warrior, magician, lover. Are you

[00:20:01] Hector: familiar

[00:20:01] Pellegrino: Oh yeah. Yeah. I read that a while ago.

[00:20:04] Pellegrino: Yeah, I'd have to reread it myself actually.

[00:20:06] Hector: and it talks about the positive aspects of the king, it says that, we can always slip into the negative displays of it, but this, this ability to, provide and, a friend recently told me, I was going through some challenges and,

[00:20:19] Hector: he was like, you're the purveyor of your family. And I was like, oh, a, I like that word. That sounds, makes me sound, you know, significant, a purveyor.

[00:20:26] Hector: Uh,

[00:20:27] Pellegrino: to look that word up actually.

[00:20:28] Hector: he, but, what he meant was that, you all these. Good things started happening for the people in your life because of you, you were at the center of, creating all of this.

[00:20:38] Hector: Not, you know, not only success or whatever it is, but all these great things were, a result of your really stability, right? And that's what Kings bring is they bring

[00:20:47] Hector: stability

[00:20:48] Hector: in the midst of this kind of chaos and. I think that in your dad's instance, in my, father had similar expressions of that.

[00:20:55] Hector: but I think that's what they were trying to hold onto, it was that sense of, providing a sense of creating order, almost in a world of chaos, which is what, that king part of the masculinity

[00:21:06] Pellegrino: That's really interesting. That is stability word, stability and, steadfastness and being kind of stoic and even the facial expressions. I've mentioned this before to other people. One of the most interesting things I've read about is, the beard beards.

[00:21:22] Pellegrino: because we have facial hair. But beards were very useful in the old days in battle. Because beards would disguise the microexpressions of fear on our face. In other words, the bushier, the beard, the more difficult it was to tell A man was afraid, cuz he wouldn't twitch. You wouldn't see the twitches and the little, the the worried look on the mouth And as we're talking here, I just Googled medieval kings and I would say 80% of the pictures that just came up on Google, they all have beards.

[00:21:47] Pellegrino: Stability, strength, stoicism dealing with it. Yeah. and we've gotta take that and adapt that to the modern world today. And it doesn't always work. I've felt that certainly, where I've tried to be so steady, stable, strong, the purveyor of comfort in our household, I've had to pay a prize for it.

[00:22:08] Pellegrino: You know, I've become sick. I've become like my daughter's dwarf, hamster, hiding it all the time and it just eats at you and in the end it will kill you. And if it doesn't kill you, you could damage someone else.

[00:22:18] Hector: Yeah. it's this ability to unload. I think you said it, you said that the anger is, attached to our spine. Right. It's in our nervous system.

[00:22:26] Hector: For me, one of the things that's really helped for me is, is working out the pandemic hit, I started,really working out a lot more.

[00:22:32] Hector: But really over the last six months or so, I've taken that even up a notch and. I love that. I, am in better shape than I was in high school and, I fit into the pants all of the physical attributes

[00:22:42] Hector: are fantastic

[00:22:43] Hector: and, the,

[00:22:43] Hector: vanity, if I was going for that would be there.

[00:22:46] Hector: but the number one thing that I love and that I get it, and the reason I keep doing it is the emotional.

[00:22:52] Hector: Strength, the ringing out of those emotions,

[00:22:55] Hector: the sweating, if I don't sweat, my emotional stability is just shot for that day,

[00:23:00] Hector: or it's not where it could be.

[00:23:02] Pellegrino: but there are some important chemical reactions going on in your body that help you do that, the very complex reactions, sweat, hormones, neurotransmitters being emitted from your brain every time you exercise, especially physically. And it's one of the things at school, you know, boys need to run around.

[00:23:19] Pellegrino: They need to release energy, they need to climb trees, kick each other, fight. Tumble and if you look in nature, male. Cubs, if you wanna call that, and female cubs, they're releasing energy all the time and they're doing it in a free way. And some of those ways are quite violent and aggressive, right?

[00:23:39] Pellegrino: I mean, I'm not, sitting here saying we should all start being violent in schools, but we need outlets for this as well as human beings, which is where exercise comes in.

[00:23:48] Hector: Well, even for adults, right?

[00:23:49] Pellegrino: even adults. I feel we live in a world today. Where you can't even express an opinion anymore without being trolled or crucified or bloody canceled, or, that is the equivalent of going to the gym and being forced to sit on a chair on the side watching this exercise. is not healthy,

[00:24:08] Pellegrino: that is not healthy.

[00:24:10] Hector: Yeah. there's a couple of things a, I hadn't really thought about, stifling your voice, Because that was something that, came up a few months ago I was at a retreat, for a bunch of other dads and one of the speakers, Quoted some book that didn't make the Bible, but it was something to the effect what, You keep within will destroy you. what you bring forth will save you. to the idea of the things that you, suppress are gonna be the things that eat away at you. I've thought about that physically, but when you talk about your voice, hadn't considered that, especially cuz so many guys these days, they don't have a voice.

[00:24:41] Hector: They take the backseat. They're just very passive. they end up. Not putting up those boundaries. they don't end up voicing it and then they end up getting resentful or, lashing out afterwards. You know?

[00:24:50] Pellegrino: That's where people like Jordan Peterson come in. They provide a voice for a lot of, these men who feel they don't have a voice. He's very good at putting into words a lot of frustrations that young men have today. And it is really difficult, where's the voice?

[00:25:05] Pellegrino: We talk about men's role and what is the role of men today I ask a question, what is the voice of men today? What is it we're saying? What is it we're allowed to say anymore? It's like, are you willing to take the risks to say what you really think, especially in a public arena? Like this is the podcast.

[00:25:21] Pellegrino: I had a lot of hesitation. I put off starting the show for a very long time because I knew it was just a topic that could be I don't know. but it was that thing that like, I've got to, do this despite any of the repercussions or I had one person say that I was being sexist because I

[00:25:38] Hector: was starting this.

[00:25:39] Hector: all these sorts of things. I think that's powerful, Pellegrino, this has been good. We've danced to a lot of places we haven't really hit on the core of, you've got a book out there that talks about some really intense experiences that I think relate a lot to, things that I'm going through.

[00:25:53] Hector: And so I'm, curious, I'd love for you to share that story, but we're gonna do that right after this quick break.

[00:26:03] Pellegrino: Hey guys, thanks for listening today. Today's episode is brought to you by Amplify Media, and we are a podcast production company that is interested in bringing out your genius. So if you have a message, a mission, a purpose, something that you wanna bring to the world, we can help.

[00:26:16] Hector: Go to amplify media.com. That's A P L A F Y media.com, and you can check the show notes for all the info. Now let's get back to today's episode.

[00:26:29] Hector: Pellegrino, before we hit record, we were talking aboutsimilar experiences that we had shared. And you actually wrote a book. The book is called Drowning Quietly. and I read the first, couple of chapters if I'm being real, it was a little, it was a little too close to home.

[00:26:43] Hector: So perhaps that's why I put it

[00:26:44] Hector: down cuz I was in the midst. these last several months have been a real crucible for me. And so I'm excited for you to share that story or share whatever you feel is relevant to the listeners and, what that whole book is about.

[00:26:56] Pellegrino: The book starts where, I leave my three year old daughter unattended by a swimming pool. What kind of person does that? What kind of man does that? So I basically explore why I did that, cuz that is, you know, you, I left her by a swimming pool, three years old.

[00:27:12] Pellegrino: Unattended. A lot of people read the first chapter and then they have to put the book down. I get lots of messages from people after they've read the first chapter. So I explore that and one of the things I talk about is anger. One of the things I talk about is this obsession to be, has you put it, the purveyor in the family.

[00:27:30] Pellegrino: The provider, the stability, and the other obsession is to please my wife. So I talk a lot about love and love is a really interesting concept because in order to really create love, In my opinion, you have to do something which is really difficult to do for people, let alone men, because I've got this definition of love and I wanna read it out to you.

[00:27:53] Pellegrino: I say that love is about giving someone the power to destroy you and trusting they won't use it. Love is about giving someone the power to destroy you and trusting they won't use it. You cannot love without being vulnerable and opening yourself up, and you trust that the other person won't use that against you.

[00:28:14] Pellegrino: And here's the worst part. Sometimes when you do that, they will hurt you, which makes it harder to love the next time. So I talk about love throughout the book, love of my daughter, love of my mother, love of my wife, because what I do is I try to describe me as a man through the eyes of the most important women in my life, my mother, my wife, my daughter looking in the mirror.

[00:28:40] Pellegrino: To see who I am, why hopefully, so it brings about change and the book is an Exploration on that change, because I did change, I have changed. I'm not finished with the project, it's an ongoing project, do a couple of things in that book, which are unapologetically honest and raw. And not very nice. Why do I do that? it's not a Facebook post. It's not an Insta Post. I'm not looking for likes and, oh, poor you. I'm not the victim. I want people to know that the stories I tell are very common to very many men, and it's okay to share the stories then you are trusting others to love you back. You're hoping that the information you give them, they won't use it against you after, but it'll connect you.

[00:29:29] Pellegrino: That's what the book is about. And I tell stories. I talk about my family, immigrants moving myself to Norway. I talk about how difficult it was to, get pregnant. We went through I V F treatment. I talk about ivf, one in seven couples go through ivf. that's the population of Nigeria men, if you can't impregnate a woman as a man, if there's nothing else, I think about the world we live in now. What is it that men can do that women can't do? There aren't many things that men can do that women can't do. And fine. There's one thing that we can do that women can't do.

[00:30:07] Pellegrino: There's one thing that women do need us, or at least one part of us, in order to bear children. that's our Trump card. That's all we've got left. Now. That's all we have. the male sperm is the only thing now that women. Don't have, you need me to propagate the work. Right. But in, but, but in a good way.

[00:30:28] Pellegrino: Not that they need us, we need them because we can't make babies. Right. and that's the last thing on this planet where we know we have to collaborate in order to the human race going. So I talk about all these areas of manhood where lots of men struggle with. They're personal stories about me, but I hope that people identify with them as well.

[00:30:50] Pellegrino: they're all relatable. And I think that was the thing I had to put it down because we all see something in ourselves about

[00:30:57] Hector: it.

[00:30:57] Hector: what I'm curious just for, perhaps my own selfishness is in the midst of. Those, I don't know what you want to call it. Internal dilemmas where you're, dealing with, an external situation, which is I v F and all of the external challenges. But then internally it's, writing the story or it's. impacting this internal story that you're telling yourself.

[00:31:20] Hector: So I'm, curious what that was like navigating, the internal story and then if it ever played out,

[00:31:26] Pellegrino: Well, first of all, you say it took you a long time to get your podcast together to actually do it. It took me 10 years to write the book. I'd written the book in my head 10 years ago, but am I gonna really reveal of this shit? but then I started telling close friends, what do you think? What do you think?

[00:31:40] Pellegrino: All of them said, you have to write this, you've gotta write this, you've gotta People need to hear this. This is really important. Okay. any therapist will tell you that. A really simple DIY form of therapy is just to write it down and also to write stories. Cuz when you write a story, you give that event, meaning especially ugly events. So the ugly event of leaving my daughter by a swimming pool unattended, I need to rationalize that, not excuse myself, explain it. Where is that coming from? And you can only do that by going deep inside yourself and trying to understand yourself. Self insight, I'm writing a story to explain to myself why I did something like that.

[00:32:22] Pellegrino: I've got to do it because I need to make sense of it. And I think a lot of men even get to first base when it comes to making sense of emotions and things they're feeling. They don't even start. They just sit there with this pressure cooker of shit bubbling away until it explodes one day. and there's an explosion episode in the book.

[00:32:42] Pellegrino: There are two actually, and I talk about how they happened, why they happened, did it do to me? honestly believe I am a better person isn't the right word. I understand myself better, therefore, I'm able to regulate and moderate. What I do about some of the really dark feelings I have, I really do.

[00:33:00] Pellegrino: It was a, it was a great form of therapy and I hope it helps other people. In fact, I know it does help other people. I get lots of lovely messages from people, not just men, but are a lot of men who say how much it helped them to understand who they are.

[00:33:13] Hector: Yeah. And I love that it's a memoir in the fact that it tells the story because so much of men and what we, think we want is the tactics and the bullet points, and the,

[00:33:24] Pellegrino: No, No,

[00:33:25] Pellegrino: no,

[00:33:25] Hector: gimme the cliff notes, right?

[00:33:27] Hector: But all of

[00:33:27] Pellegrino: no.

[00:33:27] Pellegrino: no.

[00:33:28] Hector: you hear the story and it's a different, it's a

[00:33:31] Pellegrino: yeah. yeah. you've gotta write your story as well. You've gotta write your own story. I mean readers, not all readers have gone through ivf, but all readers, all male readers, I know pretty much all of them will have this DNA of reproduction inside them.

[00:33:46] Pellegrino: there are lots of men who've gone public in the UK and the US have had similar struggles as well. It does something if you want a child as a man, and you can't make it happen. Wow. That is so, it's as if you have no function to nature, to nature, not to society, to mother nature. What are you doing here? it's that deep. It's an existential problem. Why am I here? At least that's how I felt.

[00:34:11] Pellegrino: So tell the story. Yeah, you're right. It's not about bullet points. I also do workshops and courses on, uh, cross-cultural communication and when I turn up, they think I'm gonna give them, when in Japan, do this when in the US do useless.

[00:34:23] Pellegrino: Useless, because the world is much more complex. But what I do to give them is lots of stories, examples, and tools and models to understand. People of other nations and cultures, if you know what to look for. And there's nothing more empowering than understanding. I understand so much about myself now.

[00:34:42] Hector: The book is called Drowning Quietly, memoir of a Man's Shortcomings. It's

[00:34:46] Hector: available on Amazon. Go get it. is there anywhere else people should go and, stay connected with you?

[00:34:50] Pellegrino: the easiest way to find me is to Google Pellegrino. Norway, because I believe I'm the only Pellegrino in Norway.

[00:34:57] Hector: I love that

[00:34:59] Pellegrino: But you have to ignore all the pictures of, sparkling water. I've got nothing to do with the water. So ignore the sparkling water. there's a football player in, uh, Norway or Pellegrino, but that's his surname.

[00:35:09] Pellegrino: Pellegrino is my first name, so Pellegrino Ricardi, Norway. they can find me on Instagram as well. I like putting little films out about Norway. I put one out today about, we're still snowing here. It's doing my head in. We've got six month long winters. I can't handle it. So yeah, easy to find.

[00:35:25] Hector: Guys go get connected. And my last question for you, Pellegrino, is what does modern masculinity mean to you?

[00:35:31] Pellegrino: personally? For me, it means, I think I kind of mentioned it before. For me it means taking the good of the traditional male, like strength and stability, and calm and action, action through anger, good anger, taking the good old male, but adapting it to society we live in, which.

[00:35:51] Pellegrino: The thing that's missing today for the modern male is the ability to understand and articulate, the, the spectrum of feelings we're feeling on a daily basis. without understanding them, without learning the language of emotions, of human behavior, it's like being dumped in the middle of a foreign country and not speaking the language.

[00:36:11] Hector: such a great conversation. PE Grino, We'll have to have you back for around two.

[00:36:14] Pellegrino: I loved it. It was really good fun.

[00:36:16] Hector: And, guys, thanks so much for being with us today. If you guys enjoyed today's conversation, please leave a rating or review wherever you guys listen to your podcast. If you have a.

[00:36:25] Hector: Buddy, a friend, a guy, a gal who's going through some of these things. Share this episode with them, and then I'd encourage you to take one thing from today's episode, one thing, go out, implement it, execute it. Let us know how it goes. We'd love to hear about it. Thanks for being part of the modern masculinity tribe, guys.

[00:36:40] Hector: We'll see you later y'all.