How our journey began

Coach Nick and Coach Jake met in 2015 when Jake called an executive coaching firm for help finding a new job. Nick, an executive coach and culture engagement consultant, happened to call him back. They became fast friends and when they stopped working together as coach-and-client in early-2016, Nick approached Jake about working on a book together. He wanted to write a book about a men’s group.

Nick had started his first men’s group over 10 years before to renew his relationship with his father, who passed away in 1996. In that time, he saw the tremendous impact men’s groups had on their members and wanted to share what he saw first-hand with the world: new possibilities for how men could relate to themselves, each other, and the people in their lives.

Jake, who’d never thought about joining a men’s group, but who’d always been on a quest for learning and discovery, was an absolute YES to writing the book with Nick. A lover of fiction, Jake suggested they write it as a novel. He joined Nick’s most recently created men’s group — The Dudes of Disruption — in March 2016 purely for research purposes. Instead, he discovered a pillar of his life and did learn firsthand why Nick wanted to share men’s groups with the world. Years later, The Dudes of Disruption is still going strong and the novel is being pitched to agents.

The past years have seen a lot of changes for Nick and Jake but what remains constant is their commitment to creating spaces for men to learn, grow, and become the men they’ve always wanted to be. In addition to the novel, they envisioned creating a men’s leadership platform to bring men’s groups to more men in their lives. Originally planned as a two-day program called The Arena Weekend in March 2020, the arrival of Covid-19 gave Nick and Jake the opportunity to go virtual and bring The Arena Series not just to the New York Metro area, where they live, but across the country.

Five years later, The Arena Men’s Group has impacted over 75 men, and Nick and Jake have big visions for inspiring many more men to dare greatly and live life in the arena.