Since then, I’ve become a father myself, and my dad’s lessons have stayed with me. As soon as my wife and I discovered we were having a baby girl, I realized how important it was for me to do the inner work. I needed to take care of my own toxic traits so that when I’m the first man my daughter meets, she’s going to know what’s like to be raised by someone who’s respectful and who tries for others. But I also understood that it’s hard, if not impossible, for any man to become his best self by himself.

I think too often as guys we are taught to be tough, ignore our feelings, and just work harder. My father taught me that an important part of masculinity is being grounded enough to understand how we’re actually feeling.

I didn’t have him as a role model any more, so I thought: Hey, let me be that for someone else.

I started No Luck Club here in New York City to provide the support men often don’t even realize they need. That support is physical—like being able to work out together in community—and mental, creating a space where we share our feelings, thoughts, and stressors in a safe environment. The name No Luck Club was inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said: “Shallow men believe in luck… Strong men believe in cause and effect.” This is not therapy; it’s training. You’re training your mind to be able to withstand the rigors and the stressors of life. Because we all have them.

I already had a great network of guys through my work, my gym, and my social circle; that was where I started. Initially, I was just informally inviting people to come work out. And that gives everyone an easy entry point: “Come sweat it out.” I believe that movement is medicine. It’s what regulates your nervous system. If somebody’s anxious or uncomfortable, and they don’t really want to open up, getting moving and getting their heart rate up is what gets them out of that survival mode and makes them more likely to communicate. My daughter can’t speak yet, but her body language, her movement, tells me everything I need to know. It’s the same at No Luck Club: if the guys are working out and see in someone’s body language that he’s struggling, they encourage him, cheer him on.

Your brain is like a centrifuge, it’s constantly spinning like crazy. And when you exercise, do breathwork, or tap into a community like this, it’s an opportunity to slow that centrifuge down just slightly, so you can take in what’s happening around you.

After an hour-long workout, I’ll give the floor to a guest speaker and later, we’ll often have a group discussion. The speaker is usually someone in the community who I admire and who I think the guys can learn from. We have one guy who’s an NYPD detective. Another is an Air Force fighter jet pilot (who’s also getting his Master’s degree in psychology) who comes and trains with us when he’s in town. That’s a perfect candidate right there. Other times I’ll reach out to people. We’ve had top trainer Jah Washington accept an invitation to come work out and talk with everyone.

I set up No Luck Club as a nonprofit organization, first and foremost because I didn’t want to deal with money. Just as importantly, if I had income or investors to consider, it would dilute the purpose of what I was doing. I’m a doctor. I already have a great job. I work my butt off to take care of my financial needs. Everything else on top of that is for others. Luckily, the owners of the facility that I work out of, Reload Physical Therapy, said I could run events there for free twice a month. I was shocked and so grateful that they could see the impact I was trying to make and gave me a runway to be successful. This was a huge help, because it meant I could go ahead without applying for grants or funding.

As the founder of an organization centered around men’s wellbeing and men’s issues, a misconception I encounter from time to time is that I must be anti-feminine. That’s not how it works. Guys just act differently around women. They wear a mask; they’re performing some version of manliness. That makes it harder to put yourself out there. It’s the same reason I don’t go to big box gyms anymore. Everyone’s there to look a certain way, to perform, and it’s all a distraction.

But something happens in an all-male space, when there are no women around at all, that I don’t think has anything to do with sexual orientation. Recently, a gentleman opened up about how he was very insecure growing up and had an early introduction to pornography. He told himself: I don’t need a partner, I’ve got this. Now he’s grown up, he’s more mature and has a girlfriend he cares about—but he’s realizing he doesn’t have the mental space to physically love her. That part of him is attached to a screen. And we were able to help him, to share advice and be there for him. It’s been a few months and his relationship with his partner has transformed. That kind of conversation might have been impossible if we hadn’t created an environment that allowed for such vulnerability.

The No Luck Club community has spilled over from workouts and guest talks into an active group chat on WhatsApp where I’ll regularly ask people to share a piece of advice or wisdom. Guys will chime in with really surprising stuff that might help me see things a different way. If there are a hundred people in the chat, and somebody in that group comes across a message and it helps them? That’s all I want to see.

The greatest challenge now is raising awareness for No Luck Club, getting more people involved, and continuously putting out that energy of vulnerability that says: “Hey, I’m here for you.” Ideally I’d love to start more groups in other cities, so the No Luck Club effect can ripple outward. It’s one of those things where you just have to keep putting feelers out there.