What a Rite of Passage Actually Looks Like for Boys Today
Discipline builds confidence. And confidence helps a young man start to understand who he is, what he's capable of and what he's prepared to take responsibility for.
I think that's a really important part of a rite of passage.
When I think about my own journey into manhood, I think about growing up around capable men. Men who showed up, took responsibility and did things properly, even when nobody was watching.
Particularly in construction and the trades, it was expected that you showed up, regardless of whether you felt like it or not.
Looking back, those experiences taught me a lot about discipline. But what I've learnt since is that discipline isn't always about pushing harder.
Sometimes the most disciplined thing you can do is slow down.
What that routine gave me
That routine from a very early age had an effect on me. It gave me the resilience to overcome some of the challenges I'd face later on, and the discipline to show up for myself when I really needed to.
That turned out to be a critical part of my rebuild.
My spinal injury forced me to have a reset, and I had new limitations on my body. Rather than being able to push through like before, I had to exercise another type of discipline, which was being able to slow down.
Because of my undiagnosed ADHD, I always wanted to be doing something. I always wanted to be productive.
I'd bought into the narrative that your self-worth is attached to how productive you are. That value system around productivity is something that inevitably led to my collapse.
So it wasn't discipline about showing up and pushing through when you're hurting anymore.
It was another level of discipline, where I had to listen to my body.
I had to learn that my worth wasn't determined by how much I could get done.
Discipline is not the grind
That collapse, and the depression that followed, was a moment where discipline absolutely broke down, and I felt like I had nothing.
My routine, the one I'd developed over many years, wasn't healthy. It taught me that there was a massive difference between discipline and just grinding it out.
There's a massive influence from social media, where young men are caught up in this hustle culture, this grind, grind, grind kind of narrative.
My role is to shed light on some of the negative effects of that.
Burnout. Injury. High levels of anxiety and stress around whether you're doing enough, because you're comparing yourself with others in that space.
The discipline I talk about now is different.
It's having the ability to protect your own space and say no. It's being able to do less, but more deliberately and with much more intention.
Discipline isn't just about knowing when to push through. It's knowing when to stop, when to rest and when something needs to change.
That's a lesson I think a lot of young men need to hear.
Where the rite of passage went
In our Western culture, there's no real clear rite of passage or initiation into manhood.
A lot of our culture celebrates these milestones with drinking and alcohol-fuelled parties for your 18th or your 21st. But so often, there's no real moment where you feel accepted into a Brotherhood of other men.
I think that's part of what's missing.
We all want to feel part of something bigger than ourselves. We want to feel accepted. We want to know we've got people around us who have our backs.
When young men don't feel connected to something bigger than themselves, they can end up searching for that belonging in places that don't always have their best interests at heart.
We see organised gangs and other groups offering a sense of brotherhood, but that sense of belonging can come with values and expectations that lead young men down the wrong path.
The challenge is making sure young men have access to communities that build them up, hold them accountable and help them develop the right values.
Young men need places where they can belong, be challenged and learn what it means to be responsible for themselves and others.
I think that's a really important part of what a modern rite of passage should offer.
What it looks like on site
One of the things I want to establish on the farm is a place where young men feel accepted and connected to a really safe Brotherhood.
I'm drawing on a lot of the experience I've had watching young men develop their trade on site.
Having the discipline to do things without being told. Seeing how they show up for themselves. How they keep their tools tidy, the work site tidy and themselves tidy.
Taking responsibility for their own lunch. Saving some money. Having some goals and dreams. Looking after their nutrition and their health.
These might seem like small things, but they all matter.
As that responsibility starts developing organically, you can see just how exciting it is watching a young man view the world differently.
You see the change from someone who shows up and does the bare minimum to someone who starts taking pride in what they're doing. Someone who thinks ahead, takes initiative and understands that the way he shows up matters.
It's been a really beautiful thing to witness, and I'm taking those lessons and that experience with me to the farm.
It's not really about having tidy tools or remembering to pack your lunch. Those are the small things through which responsibility starts to develop.
It's about a young man learning that he can rely on himself, that other people can rely on him, and that his choices have an impact on the people around him.
That's where confidence starts to grow.
And that's the kind of experience I want to help create on the farm.
The anchor
That confidence, and that freedom, is something you can then leverage to start experiencing what life has to offer.
But you have this discipline, this routine, these values and habits that you've built and are consistently refining, as an anchor.
Because life isn't always going to go to plan. There will be setbacks, challenges and times when things get difficult.
When you've developed healthy habits and know how to take responsibility for yourself, you've got something to come back to.
And when you're surrounded by people who share those values, you have a Brotherhood that can hold you accountable, support you and help you get back on track when you need it.
You can see how all of these pillars start lining up.
We're not just building discipline for the sake of being disciplined. We're helping young men develop the character, confidence and values to become someone they can be proud of.
We're helping them grow into the man they've always envisaged they could be, or dreamed about becoming.
That's why I believe discipline builds confidence.
When a young man learns to take responsibility for himself, he starts to trust himself. When he becomes someone other people can rely on, he starts to understand what it means to be part of a Brotherhood.
And when he's got those foundations in place, he's better equipped to take on the challenges life throws at him.
To me, that's what a rite of passage should do.
It shouldn't just mark the transition from boyhood to manhood. It should help a young man discover what he's capable of, what he stands for and the kind of man he wants to become.
That's what we're working towards at IAM101.
