Will This Survive Contact With Reality?

Today’s blog is really a question about the post above: What do you think it will take for you to have players on your team who actually go forward with that kind of boundary setting in their circles of male friendship?

I love the idea of it. Clearly, with TeamsOfMen, I’ve been working toward some version of this existing in team rooms all over the country for the better part of a decade. But like I tell my staff when we’re game planning, I’m worried this won’t survive contact with reality.

It’s one thing for our guys to nod along in a session. It’s one thing for them to agree when the coach, the room, and the moment are all aligned. It is something entirely different for them to carry that same conviction into the locker room, the group chat, the lunch table, the party, the ride home, or the friend group where the real social pressure lives.

So if we’re being honest, what do you think they need from us to make this type of comment the norm in male friend groups?

I have my opinions, and I’ve built curriculum over the past decade trying to move this forward. But you are on the ground with your guys every day. You hear the way they talk. You know what they laugh at, what they let slide, what they are afraid to challenge.

What are they lacking right now?

What are they afraid of right now?

Is it fear of losing status? Fear of being clowned by the group? Fear of being seen as soft, disloyal, or doing “too much”? Is it that they still don’t have the language to interrupt harmful talk in real time? Or is it deeper than that — that they still don’t believe the room will back them when they do?

Because that is the real test of this work. Not whether they can say the right thing in our session. Whether they can say it when it costs them something. That’s the question I’m sitting with today, and I’d love to hear what you’re seeing from where you coach.

Coach Prompts

• Where does your team currently break down between agreement in the room and action outside of it?

• What fears or social costs are most present for your players right now?

• What tools, language, and team norms need to be built before accountability becomes peer-led?

Player Prompts

• What makes it hard to challenge a friend when you know something is off?

• What are you most worried will happen if you speak up?

• What would make it easier to set boundaries in your own friend group?