Beers With Mates

Morgan and I met in Toronto, Canada while fixing his bike. We became mates, hung out over plenty of beers, rums and interesting conversations and then I moved back to Australia. Over the past week we've hung out for the first time in over two years. It's been awesome. I haven't met many people like Morgan where I have the opportunity to be fully open and have an amazing conversation with an expectation that he'll show up in exactly the same way. Morgan has developed his skills over years of workshop facilitation with the Mankind Project, various learning and development roles and his coaching practice at https://entrylearning.com We dove into plenty of topics in this chat, including where we hope to be in ten years, how manhood can be defined in today's culture and how to open up a conversation with someone you've just met, like what happens at Beers With Mates. We recorded our conversation at Burleigh Beach in Queensland, Australia on an amazing winters day. Hopefully you can hear us over the waves and wind :) Enjoy!

Ryan Elson is the Founder of Tribe Social Belonging. "Tribe Social Belonging provides opportunity through community connections. We promote events and activities whereby lonely and isolated people are provided a safe and welcoming environment where they can reconnect. There is no agenda, just opportunity. The concept of a community looking after it’s own is hardly new, we just need to re-establish it as the norm. As a result of Ryan’s life experiences he became acutely aware of the importance of social support, interaction and therefore belonging. We as a society have fallen into the lazy and ineffective trap of relying on government to fix community issues whilst we sit back and do nothing aside from complain that nothing has changed. Therefore…..nothing changes! Human beings are social creatures. We have always been and we remain Tribal. Throwing money at a problem, creating short term band aid fixes so as to tick a KPI box are not the answer. We as a community need to step back up and provide each other with support and guidance. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory in psychology comprising a five-tier model of human needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid. Needs lower down in the hierarchy must be satisfied before individuals can attend to needs higher up. From the bottom of the hierarchy upwards, the needs are: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization. Whilst we recognise that there are people in our Australian society that are not having their physiological needs or safety and security needs met these are not the needs that Tribe Social Belonging will be focusing on. Tribe target area is the third tier, shown in yellow, which involves social belonging. The reason for this is that we firmly believe that this level of human needs influences all other tiers. In addition this is the tier that we believe we can develop in the most effective way as a community." BELONGING “After physiological and safety needs have been fulfilled, the third level of human needs is social and involves feelings of belongingness. The need for interpersonal relationships motivates behaviour. Examples include friendship, intimacy, trust, and acceptance, receiving and giving affection and love. Affiliating, being part of a group (family, friends, work)”. https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html "Through Ryan’s career as a Police Officer, his efforts with community groups and Chamber of Commerce activities he has witnessed the immense value that personal support and guidance by friends, family and peers can have upon people. As a result of his upbringing in a broken abusive family situation and later personal difficulties with depression, divorce and his sons cancer he has personally been supported by friends, adopted family, colleagues and acquaintances……….. his tribe. But what if you have no friends, family, adopted family, colleagues and acquaintances that are present or in a position to support you? What if you have no Tribe?? This is where our organisation comes into play. It is designed to enable those community members that wish to provide friendship, guidance, social interaction and a sense of belonging the means to interact with those that require it. As part of a Tribe."