Men Need a Gang. Not a Group.
"The way of men is the way of the gang."
There is a line in Jack Donovan’s book The Way of Men that I have thought about more than almost anything else written on masculinity in the last twenty years.
“The way of men is the way of the gang.”
This single realization explains something that no amount of therapy groups, mastermind circles, LinkedIn networks, or men’s wellness retreats ever will.
Men are not built for groups. Men are built for gangs. Call it a tribe, a brotherhood, or a band of brothers - Donovan uses "gang”. The difference between any of those things and a group is not semantics - it is the difference between men who have your back when things go sideways and and men who show up on Zoom every other Tuesday at 7pm if they're not too busy.
What a Group Is
A group is what modern society offers men when it wants them to feel like they belong without actually belonging to anything.
A group has members. It has a Slack channel or a WhatsApp thread or a meeting on the third Tuesday of every month. It has a nominal shared interest - business, faith, fitness, networking - and a social contract that is never stated but universally understood: keep it comfortable. Don’t push too hard. Don’t say anything that makes anyone feel judged.
I have been in those groups. As an entrepreneur for many years I was a member of several organizations, and most of the successful men in those organizations were Plugged-In Betas. High-net-worth, running businesses doing high seven or low eight figures, genuinely good people. But plugged in.
I remember sitting in a private meeting of nine peers in 2014 and listening to one of them - an absolute weapon in business - complaining about his sexless marriage and closing with “happy wife, happy life.” That was the moment I knew something was off. A racehorse should never be giving pony rides.
A few years later, in a different men’s group, a member announced he was getting married. I waited to see if anyone would bring up the obvious question about a prenuptial agreement. Nobody did. When I raised it, the group turned on me. “Who hurt you?” “That’s just setting the marriage up for failure.”
These were men I had broken bread with. Men I had been on retreats with. And the mere mention of a prenup turned them into a mob.
That is a group. That is what happens when belonging is conditional on keeping your mouth shut about what you actually think.
What a Gang Is
A gang is not a criminal enterprise. The word has been hijacked and I am taking it back.
A gang, in the original sense that Donovan uses it, is a small, tight unit of men bound by shared values, shared risk, and earned trust. It has a hierarchy - not one that was assigned by a corporate org chart or voted on by committee, but one that emerged organically from demonstrated competence and character. The strongest men lead. The weaker men follow and learn. Everyone earns their place through what they do, not what they say.
A gang holds you accountable with teeth. Not with a gentle “have you considered...” from a men’s group facilitator, but with the kind of directness that is only possible between men who have something real at stake in each other’s outcomes. When a man in a real gang is making a mistake, someone tells him. Clearly. Without cushioning it in therapy language. And he receives it, because he knows the man telling him has earned the right.
A gang is forged in adversity. Not in shared opinions or shared demographics, but in shared difficulty. The strongest bonds are always forged in the flames of adversity - in the experience of doing something hard together and coming out the other side. A ski trip where things go wrong. A firearms training where you are genuinely uncomfortable. A canoe trip in the backcountry where there is no signal and you have to figure it out together. These are the experiences that convert acquaintances into brothers.
And a gang does not pretend that everyone is equal. Men in a real gang know exactly where they stand relative to each other. That is not cruelty - it is clarity. Hierarchy among men who respect each other is not oppressive. It is organizing. It is how men have always worked.
I went deeper on this back in 2021. Worth eleven minutes of your time.
The Counterfeits
Modern society has produced a long list of gang substitutes that look like the real thing and deliver almost none of it.
The corporation. You wear the same badge and work toward the same quarterly numbers, but the corporation will cut you without hesitation when it serves their interests, and everyone knows it. The loyalty is manufactured. The brotherhood is a marketing exercise. The moment you stop being useful, you are gone.
The mastermind group. Everyone is there to extract value. Relationships last exactly as long as the professional benefit does. The conversations stay at the surface because going deeper would require vulnerability that nobody signed up for.
The men’s therapy group. Feelings first, hierarchy forbidden, challenge discouraged. The explicit goal is comfort. Whatever the opposite of adversity is - that is the environment being carefully maintained. Men leave these groups feeling temporarily heard and fundamentally unchanged.
The online community. Anonymous, or close to it. No skin in the game. No consequences for what you say or what you do. The accountability that exists is performative. Keyboard courage masquerading as brotherhood.
The manoswamp. I wrote about this in The Top Shelf Man. The space is dominated by men whose income depends on keeping you angry and engaged rather than actually improving. Drama sells. The algorithm rewards outrage. The relationships are parasocial at best and actively harmful at worst. I entered that world in 2017. I left it by the end of 2021. I called it the manoswamp and I meant it.
None of these are gangs. All of them will make you feel, for a while, like you have found your people. None of them will forge the kind of bonds that actually hold when something real happens in your life.
Why Men Settle for Substitutes
The honest answer is that finding a real gang is hard, and the substitutes are easy.
Most of the environments where men spend time are dominated by what I call Plugged-In Betas - men who have achieved significant things professionally and remain deeply plugged into comforting lies personally. They are good at business and bad at being men, and they will tell you, with complete sincerity, that the two things are unrelated.
They are not. A man who cannot hold frame with his wife cannot hold frame in a negotiation. A man who has been betatized by a thousand small concessions at home has practiced submission so thoroughly that it bleeds into everything else. Business success and personal unplugging are not the same thing, and treating them as if they are is one of the most common and most costly mistakes I see men make.
The other reason men settle for substitutes is the Sigma fantasy. The lone wolf. The man who needs no one, who moves through the world in self-contained silence, who has transcended the need for tribe.
I want to be direct about this. Wolves are pack animals. Men are pack animals. The Sigma is just an Alpha without friends. Solitude has its place. Introversion has its place. But a man who has convinced himself that he does not need other men has not achieved independence - he has rationalized isolation. And isolation, over time, makes men weaker, not stronger.
What You Are Actually Looking For
The question I get more than almost any other from men who have unplugged is some version of: where do I find men like me?
I answered part of it in The Top Shelf Man. Fight gyms. Motorsports communities. Libertarian circles. Gun clubs. Powerlifting gyms. Anywhere men voluntarily put themselves in uncomfortable situations and have to perform. These environments do not guarantee unplugged men, but they attract them disproportionately. Combat training in particular draws men who are comfortable being uncomfortable - and that specific quality is one of the best filters for the kind of man you want around you.
But finding individual men is not the same as building a gang. For that, you need shared experience under pressure. You need to do something hard together. Not once, but repeatedly. The bonds that form between men who have been genuinely challenged together - physically, mentally, in situations where things could actually go wrong - are different in kind from the bonds that form over dinner or in a Zoom room. There is no shortcut for this.
When I looked at my coaching data in 2017 and noticed that only 1% of the men who landed on my page actually booked a call, I realized something. That 1% was different. They were not there for content. They were there because they genuinely wanted to change. I built my community around that 1%, and it grew into something I did not anticipate - men from around the world meeting in person, doing hard things together, forging the kinds of friendships that last.
The events have included ski trips, supercar rallies, backcountry canoe trips, yachting, Navy SEAL firearms training, and formal dinner events across multiple cities. Life-long friendships have been forged. Business deals have been made. Men who showed up not knowing anyone left with brothers.
That is what a gang produces. Not networking. Not connections. Brothers.
In Conclusion
Donovan’s line has stayed with me because it is not a prescription. It is a description. It does not tell men to go find a gang. It says this is what men have always been. This is the shape of male bonding that goes back further than civilization itself. The gang - the small unit of men bound by shared values, shared risk, and earned trust - is not a nice-to-have. It is the environment in which men become who they are capable of becoming.
Modern society has done everything in its power to replace the gang with something safer and more manageable. The corporation. The therapy group. The online community. The men’s group that piles on you for suggesting a prenup.
None of it works. Not really. Not in the way that matters.
Find your gang. Build it in adversity. Hold each other accountable with the kind of honesty that is only possible between men who have earned the right. And if you are looking for a place to start, you already know where to find it.
The Cold, Hard Truth
Never forget:
“The way of men is the way of the gang.” Not the group. Not the network. Not the community of shared feelings. The gang - small, hierarchical, bound by shared values and forged in adversity. This is what men have always needed and what modern society has done its best to eliminate.
Business success and personal unplugging are not the same thing. A man can run an eight-figure company and be a total Plugged-In Beta in his private life. Do not mistake professional achievement for the kind of character that makes a man worth having in your corner.
The Sigma is just an Alpha without friends. Solitude is a tool. Isolation is a trap. Men who have convinced themselves they need no tribe have not achieved independence - they have rationalized a weakness.
The strongest bonds are always forged in the flames of adversity. Not over coffee and agendas. Not in a Zoom meeting. In shared difficulty, in voluntary discomfort, in situations where something real is at stake. Seek those experiences and the right men will find you.
People in your life behave like anchors or sails. One holds you back, the other fills with wind. Identify which is which. Cut the anchors loose.
If you are the smartest man in the room, you are in the wrong room.
Peace.
Read Jack Donovan’s The Way of Men - the book Rich references throughout this article.
The full framework for finding your tribe, building your gang, and the community Rich built around the 1% is in The Top Shelf Man.
If you are ready to stop looking and start building - the School of Unplugging is where it starts.
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