Tom Balistrieri is a medicine man and yuwipi man recognized by the Lakota people in 1995, and for over 35 years he's studied how indigenous nations prepare boys to become men of character. He's also spent decades as a Dean of Students, Director of Counseling, and professor of psychology — a bridge between two worlds that rarely speak to each other. In this conversation, Tom shares the story that shaped his life's work: standing in his parents' driveway as a teenager, being told "every boy knows" you put oil in a car, and realizing how much of manhood is built on assumptions no one ever actually teaches us. That question — what don't we know that we don't know — led him to the Rosebud Reservation, to his teacher Joe Eagle Elk, and eventually to Passages, a program that walks young men through the kind of initiation indigenous cultures have always understood was essential. The results were remarkable. GPAs climbed. Drug and alcohol use dropped. Sexual assault rates fell to zero. So why hasn't this been adopted everywhere? Tom has an answer, and it's not a comfortable one. We talk about the sl*t/goddess split boys are handed before they can even name it, what it means to treat someone — and yourself — as sacred, the difference between an elder and just an older guy, and why "best practices" might be exactly the wrong standard to aim for.
Connect with Tom:
TJBAL50@pm.me
Connect with Travis:
Website: travisstock.com
Instagram: @travers03
Support the show: patreon.com/thenewmasculine