Leading with Balance: Mastering Masculine and Feminine Energies

Welcome back to The Navy SEAL Mindset Podcast. This is episode 26, where we're diving deep into the dynamics of leadership through the lens of masculine and feminine energies. I'm your host, William Branham, and today we're exploring a unique perspective on leadership that challenges conventional views and embraces the strength found in both masculine and feminine qualities.

Key Takeaways:

1. Masculine and Feminine Energies in Leadership: Understanding that leadership qualities are not gender-specific but can be embodied by anyone, regardless of gender, using either masculine or feminine energies effectively.
2. Debunking the Myth of Toxic Masculinity: Discussing why terms like 'toxic masculinity' are misleading and unhelpful, and how true masculinity and femininity are inherently positive forces within leadership.
3. Navigating Dynamics in Personal and Professional Relationships: How to manage these energies to create balance and foster trust, whether in personal relationships or professional environments.
4. Emotional Management and Leadership: The importance of maintaining your role and emotional composure as a leader to provide a safe space for others to express themselves freely.
5. Continuous Improvement and Overcoming Challenges: My journey of personal development and the continuous effort to improve and master the art of podcasting, despite the challenges posed by my ADHD.

I encourage everyone to think about how you can apply both masculine and feminine energies in your leadership style, not just to dominate but to truly lead and create an environment where everyone can thrive.

Thank you for tuning in, and remember, whether it's on the battlefield or in the boardroom, maintaining your composure and understanding the dynamics of your own energies can make you a more effective leader. Stay awesome and see you next episode!

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Transcript

0:00

uh, Welcome to the Navy SEAL Mindset Podcast. This is episode 026. We are a quarter of the way to a hundred. I have been on over 500 podcasts, and probably six months ago I started the Navy SEAL Mindset because one of my coaches, Bedros Koulian, said, when are you starting your own podcast? And I'm going to tell you that, because I am ultra, super ultra ADHD. These solo episodes are very hard for me when I do podcasts with other people, a co host, or I'm just on as a guest. It is way easier because there's someone there to help keep me in line or bring me back into, into focus on what I need to talk about. So these podcasts are a little bit harder for me just because my mind starts racing. I'll have a point to make, and then I'll start going down a rabbit hole and I'll start going another direction. And. I'll forget the point that I was even trying to make. And that even happens on podcasts that, you know, where they're asking me questions and I'll get my rant or my monologue out of the way. And then I'll say, I'm not sure if I answered your question or not. Cause I actually forgot the question. So these podcasts are a little bit harder for me to make, but you know what? You only get good at stuff by sucking in the beginning. So. Just like in martial arts, every time you start a new martial art, you have to put on a white belt. And you have to just be okay sucking. You have to be okay failing. You have to be okay not being good at what you're doing. And so I am just going to continue putting in the reps, not being good at this, or maybe I'm okay. And, but I always want to get better. And there's nothing about me that doesn't always want to improve. You The hardest part is actually starting the podcast. I probably procrastinated six hours today before I finally decided to sit down and create the podcast, hit record on the computer and make this thing happen. So I appreciate you guys listening to the podcast and I hope you're getting some value out of this. So today's episode, I'm going to talk about leadership again, just like I did last week, but this time I'm going to talk about it in a very different, very, Unusual, perspective. So I'm going to talk about masculine and feminine energies and masculine and feminine leadership. And it's probably not what you think. I'll probably do several episodes on this because I've started doing a deep dive into masculine and feminine and I've started posting things on Instagram and it's, and it's interesting the feedback that I get. Sometimes I get feedback where, you know, women are like, I don't need a man. I'm, I'm a, I'm an independent woman and all this other stuff. And I'm like, that's great. I know you are. And None of us need anyone. That's actually not true. The lone wolf can survive, but the pack of wolves will thrive. So if you don't need anyone, you're just surviving. You're just getting by in the world. I don't need anyone to survive. I want to be surrounded by great people who are going to help make me better. there's a saying, I think it's something in the Bible, I don't remember like what verse or whatever, but it says something about iron sharpens iron. Being around people who are going to make you better makes you better. People who are better than you make you better. Some of that is masculine and feminine energies. And so, let's address the elephant in the room. There's this phrase out there that people talk about. the phrase is toxic masculinity. What the heck is toxic masculinity? I'm going to tell you that that word is an oxymoron. The deeper I dove into masculine and feminine, the more I can't stand that word toxic or that phrase toxic masculinity. Masculinity is not toxic in any way, shape, or form. Toxic femininity. Femininity is not toxic in any way, shape, or form. Toxic simply describes weakness. Toxic describes pain. Toxic describes something that is sick or broken. there are weak men, there are weak women, there are broken men, there are broken women, there are sick men, there are sick women, there are toxic men, there are toxic women. There is no such thing as toxic masculinity or toxic femininity. They do not exist. but I do believe that the society that has created that term, wants to get rid of masculinity. And because I, you know, I'm, I'm a part of two men's personal development programs. one is called man made and the other is called the modern day night project. And what I've noticed in both of these organizations, we're trying to help men become men again, help men become masculine, help men become leaders. Because really at the end of the day that's what masculinity is. It's about being a leader, a leader of your tribe, a leader of your family, a leader of your team, a leader of your organization. And it's not gender specific. There are women, there are some alpha boss babes out there. Hopefully no one takes offense to that. Actually, I don't care if you take offense to it. Listen to my message, not the words that I use often. There are women out there that can run circles around men as leaders. And when they're out there running those circles around men, they are using their masculine energy. So if I were to define masculinity or the masculine energy. It's really about using your logic. It's about using rational thought. It's about using analytical thinking to move through the day. That is very much traditional leadership, especially running an organization, keeping things organized, managing chaos, creating safety. You need logic, you need rational thought, and you need analytical thinking to get you there. On the feminine side, the feminine can also be leaders. They are just a different kind of leader. when you are using feminine energy, you're using empathy. You're using creativity. you're being more intuitive to a situation or, a person. you're leaning much more on your emotional side and you may communicate more on your emotional side. So men or the masculine generally, communicate through logic. We communicate through rational thought. We communicate through analytical thinking and the feminine, Communicates through empathy, creativity, intuitiveness and the emotional side. But kind of going back to it, it's not gender specific. I have a friend who, she just delivered a podcast about, really closing the gap in, in men and women, where women, women, you don't have to act like a man to succeed in a male dominated, industry. Most industries are male dominated. Most high power, high authority, industries are male dominated. That's just the way it is, but it doesn't mean that a woman can't come in and use her, her masculine energy or her feminine energy to come in and dominate. I re, I can't remember the metric that, that she said in her Ted talk, but it was something like 30 percent of all fortune 500 companies. What was it? It was something like women's CEOs, CEOs. Perform 30 percent better than their male counterpart CEO of companies. Companies run by women using their masculine and feminine energies perform 30 percent better than the same kind of company run by a man. So it's interesting that women, Can probably tap into different parts better than men. Men are just mostly stuck in logic and rational thought and analytical thinking. When sometimes you need a little more intuitiveness and creativity and empathy when you are leading. But like I said, in the beginning I am ADHD and I'll just start going down a rabbit hole and Who knows where we'll end up, but I'm going to pull it back and and kind of get back on track over here. So one of the things that had me Start doing a little bit of a deep dive into this masculine and feminine energy Is I would see these reels on instagram about these beautiful women I'm sure they're very famous in some capacity. I don't know anything about them. I live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I didn't even know who Tony Robbins was until after I retired from the SEAL team. So I have no idea who anyone is really out there that could be popular or not, unless they're in my world in some capacity. And there was this beautiful woman. She's in having an interview and she was saying something about the man that she was with, used to be with. He was not a masculine man. She had children with him, all of this other stuff. And because he was not stepping up and leading with his masculine energy, she had to step up and lead with her masculine energy. She had to step out of her feminine energy and into her masculine energy. And if I want to be a conspiracy theorist, I will tell you that I believe that society is trying to emasculate men. They want men to be less masculine because that means we have less leaders out there leading men. They create terms like toxic masculinity. So when you just hear the word masculinity, you think toxic. Masculinity has nothing to do with toxicity. Masculinity has to do with leadership. Masculinity has to do with creating a safe space. And as I was kind of doing this deep dive, actually one of the reasons I started doing it was one, you know, I kept seeing these things about men not being masculine. I'm part of a couple of men's personal development programs. but I was going through some, some relationship issues and someone sent me a podcast and I think it was called the masculine feminine dynamic. I am a Neanderthal. I don't do poetry. I have tried and I have failed and I've tried and I failed and I've tried and I failed. I don't do poetry. So when I listen, hear people speaking very kind of poetically. I have to listen to it many times to understand what they're saying. I mean, there's some great books written in a very poetic frame. And I, man, it takes me such a long time to read those, to really extract what they're trying to say. So I had to listen to this podcast probably six, eight times, maybe 10 times, and then some other podcasts to get some reference on what he was actually saying. And the thing he was talking about was men need to be the masculine. I'm going to refer to men and women as masculine and feminine. It does not mean, it's gender specific, but I'm going to use gender for simplicity And you can write some hate comments if you want. I'm totally cool with that. but I hope you listen to my message and not specifically to the words that I'm using. So I'm going to use masculine for men. And feminine for, for women. It does not mean that men do not have feminine energy or cannot, I believe that we should both have both masculine and feminine. And it does not mean that women cannot have masculine energy. Again, I just told you there was this like beautiful woman talking about, she had to step into her masculine energy because her man was not filling that masculine role. And so what I believe was happening right there is men, our job, the masculine. Our job is to provide safety, is to provide a safe container, a safe space for the feminine, for our feminine counterpart. To be as chaotic and uncontrollable and express themselves in any way they see fit. And when I equate that to sort of that idea of the masculine energy being the leader of the organization, being the leader of the family, being the leader of the feminine, creating that safe space, the man, the masculine, does not lead with emotion, does not lead with Creativity does not lead with intuitiveness or even empathy. The masculine leads with this logic, analytical, rational thought to create the safe space. Once he breaks that role of masculine energy and dips into the emotional side, he loses his power in the masculine. And to kind of break that down, in a leadership position in an organization, in a leadership position in your family, Mother, father, let's just use kids for example. You never as a leader complain down the chain of command as a leader in an organization. You never go to your subordinates and say, I can't believe so and so did this and so and so did that and whatever. Your job as a leader is to protect. your subordinates. Your job as the leader is to keep them safe from the bad news, keep them safe from the complaining, from all the chaos that could be happening up here. Your job as a parent is to never complain to your children about your counterpart. Your job as a parent is to protect your children. To keep them safe, to give them a safe space so they can be emotional if they want to be emotional. So they can be creative if they want to be creative. So they can be intuitive so they can have empathy so they can be whatever they want to be. As a mother, you would step into your masculine energy to give your children that safe container. As a father, you do the same thing. You provide that safe container. You provide that leadership so they feel protected, so they can express themselves any way they want. Nothing about that as being toxic. Where this kind of gets messed up is as men, we're told that we should be more, we should share more, we should be more vulnerable. And I'm going to tell you that that is a trap. Do not do that. I have made that mistake a bunch of times and it has never once worked out for me. Has never once paid off. Now, that doesn't mean that you can't share your emotions, you can't share what you're thinking, you can't share that life is hard, but you can never give up your masculine role. Once you give up that masculine role as a man to your feminine counterpart, she will start to lose trust in you. The same thing in an organization. Once you give up that masculine role as the leader to your subordinates, and now they take on the masculine role, they lose trust in you. So masculine and feminine is not always gender specific. It's the state that you show up in. Are you going to be the leader or are you going to be the follower? Are you going to provide the safe space? Or are you going to be the person who needs that safe space to express themselves? Now, what I would tell men, do not break down to your significant other. Do absolutely not. Share what you need to share. Find other men who you trust. This is a very hard thing for men to do. I have some amazing men that I can go and I can express myself and I can let them be my container. It does not make me weak. It does not make me feminine. It does not make me anything like that. They can come to me and I have some very masculine men in my circle that have come to me to, To have that safe space because they can't do it with their significant other. Because I provide that safety and they do the same for me. Girls do it all the time. Women do it all the time. They have their girlfriends and they just like express themselves and they, they share and they overshare and all this other stuff. Employees do it. It happened in the SEAL teams all the time. Always complaining about the leadership. The leadership did this wrong. They should have done that and they should just ask us. That's us falling into our feminine energy of, of being emotional. Emotional. Having to express ourself, stepping into your masculine energy is about providing that safety, providing that leadership, providing that container, providing what you, the, the safe space for your, for your, for your people, for the people who you are leading. And sometimes you have to find people that, where you can take turns leading people that you trust, people that aren't going to, sell you, turn their back on you. When you do express your emotions. When you do express what you need to, somewhere you need to vent. We all need to vent. We all need an outlet, especially when you're in that leadership role, that leadership position, whether it's in your family or your organization or whatever it is. We need an outlet. I will tell you, do not make the mistake of making your significant other that outlet. You be the leader, especially if you're a man, go find other men to be the outlet. That's it. If you're a woman, hopefully you can trust your man. Maybe have him listen to this podcast so that he can start to understand what his role as the masculine is. Now, I, I know I have some women that listen and they're very alpha, very, they have some masculine energy, but they also have some very feminine energy and they want their, their husbands to, to be more vulnerable. I, I can tell you if a, if A lady, a, you know, a, a, a female feminine, uh, counterpart to, to my masculine said, you know, I, I want you to be vulnerable. I want all of your baggage, all of your complaints, all of your whatever. I'm going to tell you, I can barely handle my own baggage. She for sure cannot handle my baggage. So I'm just going to give her just enough to satisfy her. And then I'm going to go. Find someone else, maybe even a professional, to share the rest of it. And maybe that's what you need to do as, as the masculine. Go find professional help, someone you can talk to, someone you can pay to listen to you, and maybe give you some ways to handle and not sort of, fall into that, emotional overwhelm of yourself. Because once you, Pass that emotional overwhelm to your feminine counterpart or to your subordinates or to the people who work for you. you're going to lose their trust. And once you lose trust, it is really hard to get it back. So it's best to, we have a saying in the SEAL teams, it's easier to keep up than it is to catch up. And it was something that the instructors would say when we're on these long, soft sand runs where it's very hard to catch up and you would feel sorry for yourself and you would fall behind and then you would have to catch back up with the class. And it was always easier to just put out 1 percent more effort to stay up than it was 25 percent effort to catch back up. And so, stay ahead of it. Don't. Don't let your emotions rule you. Don't fall into your feminine unless you are doing it purposefully, unless it's a position where you're, you're flowing from, you're being that. That, that emotional safe space. You're being that leader. You're being that protector of your employees, your subordinates, your family, whoever it is, and then maybe you need to dip into empathy and start using empathy to, to provide more safety. So you're going from masculine to feminine, but you come right back up to masculine and it's sort of this, this dance, this polarity of going back and forth, and if you can learn how to use both your masculine and your feminine energy as you lead, because women. The feminine leads, they lead with empathy, they lead with creativity, they lead with intuitiveness, and they lead with emotion. If you can learn how to dip in between logic, rational thought, analytical thinking, empathy, creativity, intuitiveness, and emotion, then you will be a very powerful leader. This is not an easy thing to do, but I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Navy SEAL Mindset. Again, this has. Um, I was going to say this has nothing to do with the SEAL teams, but actually it does because it's all about leadership. It's about learning how to manage your emotions. You know, we were, we are very good on the battlefield because we don't lose our cool in the heat of battle. We are probably the most surgical unit in the world because we are the best at not shooting oftentimes. I know that because I have friends in every other branch and I know what training we get and what training they get. We are the most highly trained organization in the world. And a lot of that is, working through our masculine. No, we don't talk about it. We don't talk about masculine energy and feminine energy, but we talk about it in different forms, like ramping it up and pulling it back down, being emotional, not being emotional, being creative, like some of the best ideas we get. are from the, how creative our guys are, how they just think outside the box. They're not thinking logical and that is actually feminine, a feminine energy that they're using. I wouldn't tell them that, but it truly is the creativity. So you have like logic and empathy, rational thought and creativity, analytical thinking and intuitiveness and then emotions there at the end. So anyway, hope you guys enjoyed this episode of the Navy SEAL Mindset. I am your host, William Branham, retired Navy SEAL. Apparently, uh, masculine and feminine, uh, studier practitioner. And, I want you guys to enjoy your week. And again, if you have enjoyed this podcast, if you've gotten anything out of it, I appreciate you so much for listening this far. And, now we're on episode 26 and I'm stoked about that. You guys stay awesome. Don't forget to get naked and I'll talk to you soon. Peace.