In 2010, I dropped by Morten’s summit for one day to check out what the people and speakers there were like. I was inspired to discover a whole new pocket of people committed to self-development and relieved to have some of my preconceptions around the pick-up community drop away.
This year, I stayed the full weekend. The main attraction for me was to come and hang with Bryan Bayer. I have followed the work of Bryan and Decker Cunov of the Authentic Man Program for several years and benefitted greatly from it. It was in fact I who told Morten about them in the first place. It’s always fascinating to observe the patchwork of life’s events come together in a singular moment in such a way.
What strikes me this year, as it did last, is that these guys are young. Most of them must be in their early 20s. And they seem fucking hungry. It resonates with a feeling I’ve had for a while – that the young men of this world are dying for elders. They crave for mature men to teach them what it means to be a man and how that is different from being a boy. Not in fake macho ways that involve strategies and adopting a personality that isn’t yours, but simply in learning how to be yourself fully. No, it isn’t pickup. It has evolved. They look, it seems to me, for that ultimate blessing we all yearn for: the realization that when we face the world with our masks dropped, powerful in our vulnerability, the world loves us for it. And that sets us free.
On the other hand, the man who sleeps with women using inauthentic strategies in order to fill a hole that looks curiously similar to his own self-loathing perpetuates suffering in his life experience. These men don’t operate in the realm of adulthood, however; they live in perpetual adolescence. And what I sense so strongly at the Morten Hake Summit is that those men who sell that snake oil are not nearly as inspiring to young men anymore. Now they want the real deal, the juicy meat on the bones. They want to learn to be themselves and discover that that is magnificent.
When Zan Perrion addressed the audience, I saw that so clearly. The room seemed transfixed. He spoke the truth. He spoke like a man, a leader. And people were inspired. I was inspired. He reminded me of what is possible.
And of course, hanging with Bryan was awesome. It felt like meeting an old Bro, even though I never met him in the flesh before. He is such a fountain of wisdom and a genuinely good and authentic person. I know he has a lot to teach me. And it seemed like everyone there absolutely loved him and what he did. I was pleased as pie to see that my discovery of AMP’s work online several years ago had come to this. Bryan and I did some great stuff together the Monday after the Summit. That is now snowballing and I will write more about that later.
Thanks, Morten, Knut and the rest for showing me what I needed to see – that being inauthentic isn’t trendy among young men anymore. And it confirms my gut sense that there is a wave of authenticity spreading across the globe and it is crying for us all to be leaders in times of massive change.
This is happening right now.