Pasco – I Went to Mexico to Expose Corruption and Came Back to Fix Myself

So no more Mr. Nice Guy, no more rollover,

yes sir, no

sir, three bags full sir.

Yeah, that was definitely, you know,

that's a, that's a kind of classic men's work book,

you know, that people often kind of discover this work.

They'll find the words Men's Circle or men's group within that No More Mr.

Nice Guy book.

I deserve better than this and so I'm saying no to this and me saying

no to this means I'm saying yes to this.

Pascoe, thanks for turning up today.

Can you tell me a little bit about your journey to get to where you

are at the moment in life?

I am now at a place where I feel confident in who I am and what

I'm doing and how I interact with other people.

I often describe myself as a work in progress.

I think, you know, we're all

you know, on the journey, never,

there, never. ~ But I've,

you

come a long way in becoming the man that I wanted to be.

And more recently becoming the dad,

the father that I wanted to be.

And I guess my journey getting there kind of began,

began with an intention of actually working on

who I am, you know, choosing to take a conscious effort in informing who

I am rather than more of a passive journey into life and allow,

you know, not just letting life be thrown at me,

but actually have some autonomy and agency within it.

And so I think a crunch point for me in that journey

was seeing

some really close friends of mine really suffering and actually sadly taking their

own lives because they weren't okay with the experience of life,

right? In their world,

in their sphere. And so that was very motivating to make sure that I didn't

end up in a similar place.

and it helped me reflect on myself and recognise some of my own flaws

or crutches in life. You know,

And I'm simple, I'm a little bit of boy,

a big one for me was that I was very much addicted to weed,

I think, most of the time. I'm just very much addicted to eating,

to cannabis. Like I was smoking every day to,

to not eating at all. So I think I'm getting better every day,

to relax, to regulate myself,

to relax, to regulate myself,

to feel a sense of calm at the end of the day.

to be in a sense of comfort within the

just little of a I think I'm a big

it kind of began with that, think,

recognition of like, okay, I actually have some agency here.

This isn't something that I like have no control over.

And, you know,

that was just like one of those first things that I looked at within,

within this framework of self-development.

And it was around that time where I experienced my first Men's Circle,

you know, to bring it to kind of the practice that I found that works for me.

This, for, you know, people that are listening that don't know what that is,

it's a practice of coming together with the intention of growing as a

and the practice of living together,

and the intention of our beginning.

man to support and challenge the men that are present,

And to support the challenge of then making a friend,

you know, for that particular Circle.

and you're not alone. So, I'm so grateful to the state that we've been able to find

Some Circles are the same men over a long amount of time.

time to all of and I hope that you'll continue to be the running of

some are more kind of ad hoc drop in and you you're only with those particular

the mission to do that. So, I'm grateful to

men for 90 minutes or so.

But the intention is usually around how do I grow as

you

a man, how do I show up in this space authentically so that I can hear myself think,

so I can bring what's going on internally externally.

and begin that process of self-awareness and acceptance and then self-care

and agency. And I began to learn to discern between those things that

in life I can't control, I can't do anything about,

but I can choose how to receive and frame and perceive.

And then those other elements that I can take responsibility for the parts that

I can act upon and work on and

you

be empowered to

own and step forward with the small incremental internal

changes with the support of the Circle.

So that was yeah, that was kind of a real kind of key turning point for me

What always fascinates me is how people go,

hmm, I'm doing something unhealthy,

drinking, smoking, weed, drugs,

really doesn't matter, sex, alcohol,

you name it, I'm doing something that is not actually helping me,

it's an unhealthy crutch. How did you decide to change,

stop doing that? Because that's quite a decision.

Was there a defining moment? Was there something like that?

Well, for me it was beginning of lockdown and I just

met my now fiance, you know,

mother of my child and she recognised her relationship with alcohol wasn't very

healthy. And for me, drink was never really like became an issue particularly,

but I wanted to be with her in solidarity because we've begun living together.

~

Hmm.

And so I quit drink. and I,

I just took that moment to also quit weed,

quit smoking. it seemed like a good thing to do at the time.

Cause I recognised actually that was my thing.

Like hers was drink.

my thing was, smoking. so that helped,

you know, having a teammate to,

to, hold each other accountable.

Mm-hmm.

It can go the other way. You know,

I've been with people in a romantic relationship that enable,

you know, we enabled each other.

Yeah.

You know, like, ~ just a cheeky,

small, you know, a cheeky, cheeky joint.

Right. And I've reflected recently on these words that we use to minimise these like

bad behaviours and, know,

Mm-hmm.

Idontsee alcohol is bad. don't see weed as bad.

Like, ~ it's, it's all in that relationship to it.

It's all in the intention that we,

give that particular substance,

that particular relief is it.

...scoothing thing, is it a treat or is it a habit,

is it a pattern, is it a reliance?

And there's a subtle but key difference.

And for me, I

you

was reliant on weed to relax me.

I was reliant on it to go to sleep.

I was reliant on it to come down off an energetic day.

Now, you know, I still have edibles every now and again as a treat,

but it's very much one-off. It's not a...

daily thing. So just yeah, it's helped me change my relationship to

it and transform it into something that's,

that's much more healthy. So yeah,

to answer your question, having an accountability buddy really helped me

in both of our kind of decisions to change things.

I also think personally, I've just been quite good at making that kind

of clear cut off. You know, I was the child that gave up chocolate for

a year just to see whether I could kind of

Flexing my own discipline and then the following year quitting crisps again,

like just as a new year's resolution But then actually it the whole thing

Yeah, the cheeky joint, the cheeky drink,

it's those little words, isn't it?

They are, they're really pervasive.

They really are, they?

think we use them for all sorts,

you know, but it's always related to something that I guess we feel

a little unsure about as a behaviour that we

are verbally minimising and making it smaller than it is,

and almost like making it more fun or silly or approachable somehow ourselves,

you know, I don't think we're fooling anyone else.

We just want to make it, okay,

this is less significant than I think.

As long as it's always just a cheeky or a social cigarette or whatever it is,

becomes that much smaller to ourselves.

That lie becomes a bit more palatable.

The stories we tell ourselves are quite incredible,

aren't they?

the more I do this work of practicing self-reflection and witnessing others,

I realised the more it is all about the stories we tell ourselves,

our identity, who we are is made up of these stories.

We get glimpses of them through the practice we have in Circles,

this sharing out loud for a set amount of time,

maybe on a subject. And what's most revealing is when someone's really honest about

their self-talk. You know, what's the...

almost unconscious message that's coming up over and over again in

our minds when we're doing a particular thing,

like if it's making a mistake,

you know, how forgiving are we?

How hard are we on ourselves? What level of self-care do

we offer ourselves internally?

Is it the same as what we would offer someone else?

that is often so revealing. And then once we have that awareness of that voice

and maybe where it comes from,

that's when we can begin shifting.

Okay, well,

is that still serving me? know,

is it true? And what can I begin saying instead that actually might serve

me and actually feel more true to me?

And that's where we start shifting the internal patterns and voices

and stories and then we're changing,

you know, big things like mindsets and value systems and how we see ourselves.

so simple sounds so easy just just just reflect on this just reflect

on that just just just change the stories yeah God what's your what's your secret

you should be telling this selling this for six figures if it's that simple

I mean, it's simple to explain.

think once now I can explain it simply and perhaps maybe it sounds simple

in a sentence, but it's like anything simple.

It's practice, you know, and I'm certainly not saying I've got it figured

out as there's plenty of patterns that I still fall within,

but I have a regular practice which helps reveal them,

which is choosing to sit in an uncomfortable,

sometimes environment often when I don't feel like it and

practicing getting out what's going on inside so that

Mm.

every week for the last six years I've been in one or sometimes three

or four Circles a week speaking out loud what's going on for me and and

in that kind of like journaling there's there's a vigorous practice

and accountability of the other men

to process that. the best comparison I have is a gym,

you know,

Mm-hmm.

you don't go to the gym once and it's a silver bullet and you're suddenly fit,

right? You have to practice and you have to keep it up.

And a Men's Circle is exactly the same.

You know, you can't expect to go to one Circle and suddenly understand everything

about your life because your life continues to change over time.

So actually it becomes a lifestyle and it becomes

Hmm.

a place to continue to go to much like

I mean, if you're rich enough,

a therapist becomes a regular practice,

but obviously it's not achievable for everyone necessarily.

So your men's group, why did you set these up?

Yeah, well, that's kind of the longer story,

I guess. Like my parents are always the beginning of my story.

So they taught me how to live a life of service.

Basically, my dad was a probation officer working with people with A-class

addictions in Bristol. He then retired and now runs a park

for disabled children just in the town that they...

they live in. My mum has worked with refugees,

asylum seekers, female prisoners,

kind of they're both very giving and shown me that,

you know, to use a relative privilege that we have to give to others

and find a balance of being of service.

And so that's how I grew up. And that's when I left school,

that was really my intention. How do I go about doing that?

I

basically spent my whole 20s trying to figure that out,

trying to answer that question,

which took me from studying ecology and conservation.

You know, I thought, right, I'll be an environmentalist,

I'll protect the environment.

Mm-hmm.

Then became a photographer, kind of fell into that by accident,

followed my interest, which eventually led me into journalism.

I worked for Vice for a while.

I went on to work for Al Jazeera.

Again, thought that was gonna go a particular way,

thought I'd be an investigative journalist,

maybe targeting kind of environmental issues.

It all kind of came towards this pinnacle moment of putting a story together

out in Mexico. I don't know, just,

had this kind of realization at the time,

which was that it was kind of all about me rather than being truly of service.

I was looking to make this big story about the...

corruption and shaming and blaming people.

And I think ultimately I realised actually that doesn't create change.

Societal change isn't sustainable through

Mm.

aiming, blaming, pointing the finger.

And I also began looking at myself and how I was part of that same story that

I was putting together. And so that kind of shattered that whole dream

and trajectory.

And then slowly I got into positive journalism,

started doing some constructive journalism.

That was interesting. And then ran a previous organisation to this one,

~ with a friend of mine around innovating fundraising,

cut my teeth on how to run an organisation and lead a team and volunteers

and did the real like five years of struggling to make a start up work

and failing ultimately. and a lot of really good lessons within that.

And then.

During that time I'd lost these two friends to suicide and I also realised that

I was experiencing this internal loneliness.

I felt alone with my experience as a man and I was hearing

all these horrible stories about men and particularly white

you

privileged men being...

pointed as to blame for so many of our problems.

I just really personally wanted to improve the reputation of men.

I wanted to do something that was useful.

And I could see this mismatch between what I was seeing for these individual

men and how their lives really

Hmm.

were.

And an old friend, Steve, came to me ~ after I'd experienced my first men's Circle.

And said, look, I've got this project.

I need someone to run it. Um, you know,

we're running this weekly online Circle.

Um, are you interested? And to start with,

was like, no, no, no, I'm still doing my other project.

And then I started my own one in person,

uh, during lockdown in London parks and began kind of getting comfortable with that

facilitator seat and could really see the potency of it.

Um,

Hmm.

and then.

eventually Steve dragged me in and got me involved and then I began to kind

run with it and he bowed out.

We kind of agreed together that I was going to take on the project and lead

it and I managed to kind of use all my experience before running

an organisation and yeah just kind of took it forward and then the next what four

years have been evolving it from one Circle

to many Circles, to our facilitator training,

to our wider community, and yeah,

just evolving it and growing it.

And now we're in that kind of third stage of evolution where instead

of me running everything and being the octopus entrepreneur,

I'm now in a position where I can delegate different elements of the organisation.

We've got some amazing new board members who are...

so much more experienced than I am in this space.

And yeah, we're now evolving and professionalising,

you know, to an even greater step,

which is really exciting. like something that I'm most excited about this year with

the project and where we're at is we're putting together a study,

scientific study on the efficacy of these spaces.

And I think that for me will personally kind of affirm the impact I know it has.

~

Mm-hmm.

and give us a kind of badge of honor of like,

science says this is good. And I think that will open a lot of doors

in terms of trust and people kind of making a more of a comparison with other

therapeutic type spaces that are more widely kind of recognised and referred to.

That's the kind of the dream that this is much more mainstream,

that this becomes as common as a gym membership,

you know, this is the gym for the mind.

I think that's fabulous. I take my hat off to you.

mean, that's just, you know, it's forward thinking,

it's saving lives, it's helping people make sense of stuff.

I'm sure you've looked back plenty of times and joined all those dots

and see where you'd had enough of something or you realised things weren't working.

But take me back to Mexico.

What was the trigger that made you go,

is really not for me, this is not me being true to myself?

you know, I sold all my stuff,

I went with my backpack, mostly camera kit,

and I was like, I'm going to go out to somewhere in the middle

of Central America and tell like a really good story and make a name for myself.

And it will have this huge impact and it will be adventurous and exciting,

you know, kind of classic Hero's Journey,

you know, mentality.

I began that journey with a real mindset around systematic change,

large scale systems change economics,

How does political lobbying impact environmental standards?

How does money move from government to policymaking through to these

big corporates and back again,

you know, these big cycles that I was mapping out.

And I think from that point all the way through to

relatively recently, I guess at the start of my journey with Men's Circle,

I kind of realised that the stuff that's happening on this macro scale,

on this global scale, is simply a representation of what's happening internally

in each individual. You know, the reason that people are grabbing for greed

on a global scale

it's happening because there's an internal fear,

you know, there's an internal fear of like not having enough,

right? Or wanting more than your neighbour.

Like all of these big, big economic,

you know, global power over struggles,

international

Hmm.

boundaries, all these things, they all still come back to what's going

on internally. It's only people behind all these decisions.

And so when I began to see how one Circle could change mindsets

and behaviours and what's going on internally and ultimately move people towards

more internal care for themselves,

internal care for others and internal care for the world,

you know, that then became our philosophy.

And I realised that actually that is the thing,

at least

Mm-hmm.

I can tell at this point in my life,

that has the potential to be

biggest scalable change. If we can scale these Circles where individuals

are beginning to reflect and look at and build care internally and with these small

Circles and build trust for their fellow humans,

then that's where we can scale up and bring that into the global systems.

Because a decision that someone makes in the EU around policies for environment

is influenced directly by his own or their own,

her own internal dialogue and messaging and world.

And so I just have put the two ends together basically.

And I think that's what I came to realise on that journey.

Like, oh yeah, I can do this flash in the pan.

could, this could go be a sensational story,

but then actually nothing's really going to happen.

Nothing sustainable is going to change.

Like someone might lose their job,

you know,

maybe a few people might change their hotel policies around the environment,

I don't know, but like the

Hmm.

actual impact is really small,

even if it's a kind of big flash in the pan for a moment.

Like the sustainable change is the slow one,

you know, it's the hard graft,

it's the individual, it's never gonna be these big,

big changes.

That's quite an observation, isn't it?

I admire that. think you've, it makes so much sense.

I'm just picturing that. I'm just picturing so and so,

so and so. Not changing his hotel,

not caring less about that because he only feels safe when he's got lots

of nice stuff around him or something like that.

So stop changing the world, change it person by person.

Well, it's a very old philosophy,

You know, it's like, the change you wish to see,

right? Like that message has been,

you know, banging around for a long time.

I think it's, but it takes, it took me to realise that myself,

right? Like that's where a piece of wisdom you can read,

but it doesn't mean that you understand it.

It doesn't mean you've lived it.

I think that was just me personally living that by experience.

Certainly for most men, I think that's the only way we learn is

by stubbing our toes, chopping our fingers,

hitting our hands with hammers and things like that.

It has to be a fairly physical way of learning it.

so you started off by running your own group or with this friend of yours Steve?

So we were, he was running an online one.

I was running an in-person one.

And for a while they were kind of,

yeah, in parallel running independently.

So my first Circle was in London Parks.

So we generally meet on Hackney Downs,

just like near where I was living.

You know, there'd be six of us.

They were just friends of mine that I got together and I sort of pitched it to them.

You know, I've done this men's Circle thing.

I'd like to lead a group for us.

You know, this is an opportunity for us to connect more deeply,

Hmm.

explore areas of our internal world and get honest with each other.

are you up for it? And they said yes.

It was locked

No.

down. We were able to meet outside,

particularly during the summer.

And then it came to the point where actually it was too cold to meet outside,

but there was another lockdown and we couldn't meet inside

Hmm.

anywhere. So that's when I then...

considered the online and I was so skeptical.

really thought this isn't going to work online.

don't see how we're going to connect.

then, yeah, I continue to be overwhelmed with,

with like emotion and feeling around how intimate is truly.

think there's something in people feeling very safe in their

own environment at home. They can just leave if they need to or want to.

They can have their cup of tea and a snack or whatever,

and they're comfortable in their chair.

you're only having to, to be there right on time and then leave right after

it fits into everyday life, really well.

And everyone's so many people are working from home now.

and there's, there's also just,

~ the added benefit of having an international community,

you know, most of our Circles now will have men all across Europe.

and now we're extending, we've got our first US Circle.

We're about to have an Asia Circle to fit different time zones.

And I think that's when the magic,

another layer of magic happens,

right? We have intergenerational mentoring that happens,

which is profound and something I'm a huge advocate for.

But then the international element brings another layer.

And I think this is like, for me,

where peace building comes into play.

The more diversity we can get in a Circle.

All we're doing is facilitating honesty,

really, and listening. And then through that just listening

and tolerance and acceptance of others and keeping open,

we build trust naturally. That happens.

And I often reflect on how, if you watch a reality show,

often they're put into this environment,

know, like Traitors is a good example,

this environment where these individuals would never normally be together.

But these shows where there's there's a closed container of individuals

and they just have to be with each other purely from exposure.

Mm-hmm.

And I think the great example is

like when these pretty nasty public facing politicians go on something like

I'm a celebrity and they build public trust simply through exposure and then

choosing to act in a certain way.

And before the program, you know,

general public would have, would have hated these individuals

and purely through honest exposure,

trust is built. And I think the same thing happens in these Circles where actually

if we can open ourselves and really just listen and be with whoever

you meet someone on an individual or a small basis,

know, 99 % of people are good willed,

mean well, and I'm just trying to make a living.

And I think that's what it is and that actually

internally, everyone's more or less going through the same similar journeys,

different contexts, different layers of experience or identity,

but ultimately, the same fears,

the same hopes,

Hmm.

And that's very levelling, very ~ trust building.

And ultimately, I think that's what peacemaking is.

It's building trust between people that we fear,

fear of the unknown.

I think most people love their children.

I think most husbands love their wives.

I think that is the norm. We just hear the shit that doesn't work.

in my experience, when I connect with people from around the world,

people see things differently.

Hamish's experience is here, but I hear I have that person's,

which is just like a subset of mine and their own.

I start to learn differently, I start to see differently that experience

is really profound.

do you think men open up easily?

Do you think that's something that we do ~ in a space?

Or is it quite difficult for you to set these Circles up where people will dare

to share, dare to open up?

think in general, globally, no,

men don't open up easily. However,

create the right environment where they feel safe.

They do. And the key to that is psychological safety,

which comes with it being men only.

because there's another layer of shared experience and there's a bit less

of a fear of judgment. There's a bit more permission to get things wrong,

to not feel shamed or blamed or even cancelled for,

you know, admitting a mistake.

I think confessions are quite common in Circles.

It's almost like becomes the modern,

you know, version of a confession booth,

right? And not in a formal way.

It's not like...

we're asking everyone to confess their sins

You

We get to admit what we feel shame about,

maybe. That's some of the deepest subjects maybe we'll go into.

And there's not many environments,

and not many friendships that can hold that kind of level of depth

or truth or uncomfortability. But yeah,

like...

To create psychological safety,

create the intention around going there,

think it helps when it's a group of relative strangers as well.

I'm sure you've experienced that thing where you meet a stranger on

the train and either they or you pour your heart out because why not?

You've got nothing to lose. You're not risking the friendship

or relationship by being truthful.

I think that's the fundamental thing in a Circle.

It's like you're with...

either complete strangers or relative strangers,

but you get to start from zero and

Hmm.

start with really raw, authentic truth about what's going on for you.

So trust builds very quickly. If that trust comes further depth.

So yeah, the container, the intention and the plan,

guess, you know, having, okay,

you've got 10 minutes to talk now and it's going to finish,

right? And I think

That's a small but subtle difference between something like counseling

or one-to-one therapy where I think there is a sense of like the unknown with that

large focus and intent of spaciousness that

Yeah.

maybe doesn't suit men so much.

I think the final element that really helps men open up is,

you know, the whole kind of shoulder to shoulder,

side by side, in a group, group work works really well for men.

And that's something I hope to kind of...

show evidence for in our study that actually the modeling that happens through other

men getting to learn vicariously through another man's experience that's maybe

similar. A man might articulate something that I've been feeling in a Circle

or been going through, but haven't been able to put words to it,

but I get to learn. And I often say in our facilitator training,

Yeah.

right, the magic sauce in a Circle is not actually in the practice of talking and

working on ourselves in that way,

it's in the listening. That's really where the real magic happens because

we get to suddenly see not just the men in the Circle differently,

but actually all of the other people in our lives differently because

we realise there's all this internal stuff going on for everyone.

And that's just a huge mindset shift for humility

and compassion and empathy, which men walk away with.

But how do you get them to open up then?

How can you, you've created this safe space.

They know they're not going to get shamed.

They know they're not going to be laughed at or it's the wrong question.

How does that man take his mask off?

Yeah, we ease them in. I think that's a big part of it.

You know, the first step is that like they have chosen to sign up,

right? So there's some part of them that is seeking something when,

you know, we're not taking strangers off the street and dragging them into

something. So that helps, right?

They've already signed up for something.

It's a free trial. So there's zero risk for them.

They don't have to show up. It's not going to cost them anything.

once they're in and actually choose to come into the Circle with us,

our conversion to use like the business term,

know, from them being in the free trial to actually choosing to pay and stay

as a member is really high. You know,

I think, yeah, this year it's been 66%,

which is really high in terms of like,

yeah, men trying something and then choosing to stick around.

So the easing in,

starts with their intention and then once they're in the space,

it's putting them at ease. It's introducing what we're going to do.

Men love a plan, so we lay out what's going to happen.

We have an initial check-in, which is our kind of temperature check.

How are you doing in this moment?

You know, when we have a few tools that we use for that.

And again, it's

Hmm.

very...

much more on the kind of man end of the scale of language,

right? It's a scale, it's a one to 10 score,

it's use three words. They don't have to be feeling words and we just start with

the basics and then we might go in another level,

right? So the next thing might be a warmup question where we invite some depth.

But again,

depending on where they're at in that easing in of the journey.

So if it's their first Circle,

if it's our, if that's our drop in,

the question's very generic. It's very big.

It's like, what are you working on?

You know, what's, what's currently going on for you?

It's like, you can fit anything into that question and they can choose

to bring something. Whereas later down the line,

you know, if they've been with us for a while,

we start going into depth, like those subjects I talked about.

We have our agreements. That's another key part of psychological safety,

Confidentiality, sobriety,

Damn.

no interruptions, non-practicing,

non-judgment, you know, those things that are just verbally agreed,

you know, thumbs up, but actually

Mm-hmm.

create that psychological safety.

I've got a bug bearer about the phrase like safe space,

cause it's kind of getting thrown around and doesn't mean anything anymore.

And I'm always,

Mm-mm.

plugging in our training with our facilitators,

you know, a safe space isn't just there,

it's created and it takes time to create and these agreements,

they are the boundaries that make it psychologically

Hmph.

safe. It's the difference between being able to share openly and not censor versus,

you know, being able to trust that actually what I share here is going

to be received well, it's not going to be judged and no one's going to

try and solve or fix it, which is another kind of key,

key part of what's different.

It isn't it. can just see a space as a whole load of men all talking together,

all trying to fix each other rather than themselves Yeah,

I can see that kind of chaos happening sometimes

and that's what why we have facilitators,

right? They're guiding that those agreements,

they're holding those agreements intact.

And yeah, it's a slippery slide to an advice space.

Then we have a centering exercise,

right? But essentially, it's about getting internally centered,

you know.

Sometimes in life we might be leaning in too much to responsibility

and taking ownership of too much.

Other times we might be avoiding and leaning back.

We might be having a wobble here and there or a crisis of some sort.

So centering is an opportunity to come to some sort of centre in time and space.

Usually it's a breathing exercise.

It allows us to let go of what's just happened in our lives.

arrive into the practice of being present in the Circle with others,

regulate our emotions for a moment,

physically relax so that actually psychologically we're slightly more relaxed

and therefore a bit more open to the process,

And then what do you know, five minutes later,

they're much more settled and ready to actually go a little deeper

in their internal world. So that's the key part.

And then, and then we're getting into the shares and the final thing

I think that helps open people is modeling.

Our facilitator is leading by example,

right? They're the ones who are showing how it's done.

This is the way to share. and this is one way of sharing and then maybe inviting

other men that have been there for a little bit of time to model.

then monkey see, monkey do, you know,

Yeah.

99 times out of 100, all of the men will share.

In fact, I've not been in a Circle where a man has decided not to share.

It always happens, even if a man kind of arrives and thinks,

no, no, no, I'm not going to just going to listen for this one.

and they realise actually this is an okay space to do that and feel safe enough.

it's what people need. And, if the person with his arm legs,

arms and legs crossed, this, that and the other,

then starts sharing, it's obviously shows that everyone needs to talk.

Everyone wants to be heard. Everyone wants to be seen.

That must be quite

challenging but also wonderful just to sort of see people dare to breathe,

dare to show up for themselves.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's it's a real honour to be in that position

of unlocking that for individuals.

And I think that's where we sit as an organisation.

We have created a way,

a format, a brand that is very accessible.

And so I can't remember what the percentage is probably about 8 out of 10.

guys who come to our Circles have never experienced anything similar,

know, never been to therapy, never been to counseling,

never been to a Circle. And that's a real success metric for me.

Like, I'm really pleased about that because it means we are reaching,

you know, a new audience of people that need this.

And I think that's our niche really,

like, counseling one-to-one work doesn't suit men particularly well.

therapy or one-to-one work isn't particularly accessible.

It's either expensive or it's long wait lists.

On the wait list, you might only get six weeks of sessions one-to-one,

half an hour each. It doesn't allow for,

I don't know, it's just not designed for men particularly.

And I think that's what I'm keen to show evidence of.

Apparently I can't say prove. It's not proven

You

that it's effective for men to work.

groups to be alongside each other and

Mm.

I feel like at the moment that's my life's work.

So you started off and then you've done that typical thing.

You've start up, you've got a bit bigger,

you've got a bit bigger and then to grow,

you have to delegate, you have to do this and that.

How have you developed as a person to be able to do that kind of thing and

let go of some parts of control and do other bits?

This is a big part of being a man and building something as well without being,

without making something impersonal.

It's been a huge part of my personal journey kind of alongside,

know, alongside that larger journey,

I guess, just from, began wanting to create a organisation,

a business that has positive impact,

right? And I began that journey in a very purist mindset.

wanted it to be, you know, how do we make Men's Circles free for everyone,

you know, and

it's taken me, you know, four and a half years to realise that money

is not this like, you know, at a certain point on this journey,

I was totally rejecting money.

I wanted to work towards a world that didn't need

it because I see

it kind of utopian vision in my imagination that would function,

but we're just so far from it.

You know, I went to Burning Man where

they've created a bit of a utopia and around,

you know, having 10 days without any money and everyone's giving

and participating and radically responsible and all this ethos.

And so it helped me imagine what that might look like.

And so around that time, yeah,

I was like, no, you know. ~

Hmm.

It's taken me four years, I think,

to slowly move the other way and go,

no, money is exactly, you know,

the bedrock and the blood within the system.

it's

Thank

the water of the world. It just needs to flow.

It's not inherently like a bad thing.

It's just people are

Yeah.

misusing it. People are stockpiling it.

And again, it sounds really obvious and simple,

but...

again it's like one of those pieces of wisdom for me internally to learn

So I've gone full flip and now I'm like okay.

actually, how do we now scale up what we have without impacting our values?

How do we take on finance and funding without impacting actually

the quality of the service and our organisation and what we're doing,

it all comes down to the quality of our facilitators.

the ones who are on the ground and in the Circles and they will

be the ones that ultimately dictate how good our organisation is.

And so that's what it's kind of all coming down to.

We can create all the model and automation and scaling and find the right people

to do different things, but it will come down to what happens

in each individual Circle and is that fruitful?

can we help people?

discover this as a lifestyle again like gym lifestyle right a lot of people

Hmm.

have a gym lifestyle because it serves them physically that's our mission

how do we do the same for people's minds you know if you want to develop

as a man this is the space to come that's the message

And your facilitators, you said you've,

you've, you, you're training them up.

You've got a school or an academy or a process to train them up.

So they are qualified, certified.

Yeah, so we've trained 55 facilitators now.

We've had several different trainers over the years.

We started with Lee Stegals,

who is a kind of traditional men's work leader,

retreat leader, learned a huge amount of kind of the mythopoetic men's work that's

existed in this space for quite a while.

That then got handed on to a psychotherapist.

And he took on the training. brought kind of some of the tools from some

of the psychotherapy world that we could apply.

Um, and then more recently I've taken it on for a period of time and

I'm just handed it over to, um,

one of our more experienced facilitators to take it forward.

and assuming that they've led a good Circle,

you know, they, they then get,

our sort of certificate of completing the training,

and then we pay our facilitators.

You know, we offer that after the training and actually they can earn back what

the training costs within 10 months.

and that's all part of the same sustainability

you

and actually part of the same growth journey,

right? So many of our facilitators,

in fact, almost all of our facilitators were members to start with.

Yeah.

And that's

all the same model, right? Men,

once they've learned how to take care of themselves,

once they've learned better, how to take care of their relationships.

The natural next step is then to step into leadership and be of service to others.

And that's where we offer our more experienced men in Circles

the opportunity to train with us.

that is a really wise way of doing it because people get bored of doing it for free.

People get bored, they're not qualified,

they're not certified. You've got that kind of small,

nothing wrong with small, but you've got a simple process.

you've got 55 trainers. So let's say you've got 50 Circles,

60 Circles. You're running a business,

you're running a school, you're running a whole environment,

you're training people. You can't do that just voluntarily,

can you?

If there's one thing I've learned on this journey of money is that money

is the only thing still that holds much power in our commitment

and integrity and trust. You know,

it says in God we trust right on a dollar and I'm sure it says some sort

of promise on a, on a pound, you know,

Mm-hmm.

we, we have kind of proxied our trust through money.

Right. That's, that's ultimately how we create a contract and agreement

to do something for another. Of course we volunteer.

Of course we help our neighbours and family and things for free,

but like when push comes to shove,

all of us, unless we're completely

Hmm?

outside of society, have to earn some sort of living.

And it's taken me a long time to realise that.

And that's where I've realised.

not just for our facilitators,

but for myself personally, the only way this is sustainable is

if it financially works for me,

works for my family that I'm now providing for,

and financially works for the individuals that we want to stick around

and be of high quality and continue to show up and things.

So it's integral simply because of the framework of society we're in.

And I think that leads even more beautifully than I could have wanted it to,

straight into that importance of the self-care,

of looking after yourself. I mean,

you've said numerous times you've had to stop and look back,

look back at Pasco, hold a mirror up,

this is who I am, this is what I do,

this is what's important. How do you keep doing that?

was at a point where I would give anything to anyone that asked,

you I can remember saying that out loud and I,

you know, that manifested a relationship,

like a romantic relationship where I gave way too much of myself and

I enabled a manipulative behaviour from my partner because I was just willing

to give so much and show she, you know,

in that kind of

polarity was asking for too much.

And I was equally responsible in that dynamic.

Equally with work, I was giving too much of myself and not giving enough back

to myself. And I'm still on that journey to receive as much as I'm giving.

And I know that I'm investing in something that will give back.

And I really believe in that reciprocity that happens in life.

And a lot of my life has been a...

bit of an experiment to prove that.

When I was quite young, I can remember one of our family friends,

kind of a godfather figure, telling me about ~ karma,

just kind of sharing that concept of karma.

And I can remember school testing karma and seeing whether it was true.

I think that's kind of ended up really informing how I lived my life,

that if I'm kind, if I give to others,

if I can serve others, then it will come back to me and I can

say that that has continued to be true,

whether it's true because I believe it is or whether it's true because

it is fundamental. I'm not sure.

No, it's it's ended up becoming true for me.

And so I guess, yeah, I've just out of necessity now,

you know, now I've got a two and a half year old,

I do have a family to provide for and I have to I have to financially provide

for myself and us.

And I think that's to answer your question fully.

It's like, I'm always a work in progress.

I'm always having to check part of myself.

And that's for me, what a Circle is about.

It's like, you know, noticing when those patterns are re-arising and keeping them

in check or if I go completely off the rails and I'm like,

shit, okay, like I need to get back to where I was or...

finding something new, you know,

what's my new edge? And now it's leadership,

right? Like now I'm in a position of leadership I'm constantly challenged

and constantly given feedback from everyone.

And I'm now learning how to shield myself from some of

Take care.

that and receive some of it that,

you know, that's painful. And that's my new edge,

And I think

Hmm.

that's the journey of success.

you're continuing to expose yourself because people are ready

to critique or to shove their opinion towards you.

So no more Mr. Nice Guy, no more rollover,

yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir.

Yeah, that was definitely, you know,

that's a, that's a kind of classic men's work book,

you know, that people often kind of discover this work.

They'll find the words Men's Circle or men's group within that No More Mr.

Nice Guy book. Yeah, I learned through a very difficult relationship towards

the end, how to find my boundaries,

how to find my no, and how to take care of myself ultimately and have

the love that I deserve. You know,

that's what it came down to.

I deserve better than this and so I'm saying no to this and me saying

no to this means I'm saying yes to this.

it is in those relationships, isn't it,

where you finally get pushed to a breaking point where you start to say,

no, you learn those boundaries.

I can look back at several relationships where I had to learn boundaries pretty

quickly, otherwise I'd be walked over,

and other ones where I got walked over.

But I guess it's just part of that journey of being human and particularly being

a man and being, you know, of service and wanting to make a difference.

I think part of my overall journey is kind of comes back to that thing

I said earlier about like proving that a privileged white,

you know, English man is like,

an okay guy, you know,

Yeah.

it's like a fundamental part of me that feels sad about growing up

in a society where, you know, older white men are...

making some terrible decisions and having power over others.

And we're still seeing that right in the news today is awful stories about that

There's something about like my own personal reputation,

but also the reputation of men that I really want to improve.

And the way I'm doing that is leading by example and going,

look, I'm going to work on myself.

I thought I was like, had it.

I thought I was a good guy, but actually there's all these parts of myself where

I'm unconsciously acting, you know,

in ways. you know, if you want to join me,

then, you know, then come, come along,

you know, come join the club, right?

Hmm.

That's

what I'm doing. I'm member number one.

That's how I refer to myself. Like this was for me to look at myself more deeply.

And I just happened to find a lot of other people that want to do the same thing.

where can people find your men's groups and more about you?

Where are you? Where do we find you?

you can just Google, Men's Circle and we're,

we're there. a lot of people find us through chat GPT now,

which is a new thing for us. ~ again,

just search men's Circle. our website is mens circle.club.

it's the same on pretty much any social channel mens circle.club.

And the core of it is these online Circles.

We, know, you can jump into our free trial.

You can have four Circles for free,

see whether our style, the way we do it,

whether online works for you, you know,

without any kind of risk and, and,

~ and then decide whether you want to join and the men that join then also

get access to our hikes. We do two annual hikes in the UK and that's the

way we come together in person.

We have some events in London that we do ad hoc.

And then there's this journey onto leading a Circle as well.

And many of the men that lead Circles online with us and get supervision

and ongoing training, they also have their in-person Circles.

So, you know, it suits people that are interested in,

know, okay, I'm out in the sticks in,

I don't know, wherever in the UK and Scotland.

I want to learn this skillset so that I can set up something locally and

I can touch in with this practice,

you know, of leading one online.

So that's kind of the positioning we find ourselves in.

I'm just following that thought process.

I live on an island somewhere,

there's 40 other people. I come and do your course,

I can share it. You are just sowing seeds everywhere so beautifully.

And because it's such a helpful,

nurturing thing, I can just see that value and someone say,

I want to learn this and off I go and then do the same thing

And do you get out to these places?

Will you go and visit somebody on a little island and see how they're running their

Circles? You disappear out to these places.

I mean, I've visited the Circles we have helped set up in London.

I haven't gone much further than that.

mean, I'm so time restricted, Hamish.

Yeah, fair enough.

Half the week I'm looking after my daughter.

She has some time in nursery, but we want to be quite present with her

at this stage of her life while we can.

So I have to balance running an organisation and being present with her.

So yeah, time is very restricted at the moment.

But I see it, know, I see it, I

Mm-hmm.

get to watch it grow. And I think it is about just a skill set,

really,

Hmm?

and the intention of coming together,

you know, creating the virtual or physical space to enable guys,

you know, to feel safe enough to find their little tribe of people that want

to do the same thing, you know,

and I have mine in here in Sheffield,

right?

made dad Club here, which has absolutely taken off.

a year, I've found 350 local dads and they've all come together and

we have all these, you know, weekly events around activities.

There's a Dad Circle that I facilitate.

And that's kind of, you know, the hope for all of our facilitators that actually

they, they're part of this online community,

our internal kind of, you know,

inner Circle of ~ team that

Hmm.

gets trained in ongoing supervision,

but then they also have their local hub,

their local community that they lead within and build community like I have here.

Well, I wish you all the success in the world with it because it just sounds sounds

fabulous. I'm really excited for you.

So thank you so much for turning up today.

This has been brilliant.

Thanks for having me. Always a pleasure.

No, it's been really good.

Well, there we are. Thank you ever so much,

Pasco, for turning up today. If you liked listening to this,

if you enjoyed the show, please follow,

please share this with other people,

please tell everybody about it,

particularly share what Pasco is doing because he's got a mission You can hear that

passion and what he's shared with us today.

So Pasco, thank you ever so much.