Man-Up: A guy’s guide to living a man’s life with integrity, strength and a smile.

Earn and Honor Rank

The wood chosen to represent this tenet is  Redwood – The redwood tree is the grandfather of trees.  He stands tall and straight, above all others.  He is long lived and considered wise.  Redwoods attain a stature unparrelled by any other living thing.  They have earned a place in our lore by virtue of their longevity and stature. 

The symbol for this tenet is the Eagle – A universal symbol of leadership.  The eagle soars high where he can oversee his domain and easily swoop low to the ground to gather what he needs.  Like the redwood the eagle has become iconic.

There are at least two ways to view this tenet.  One is the militaristic notion of following the chain of command.  Do what you are told and only what you are told.  Don’t question authority.  Follow your orders.  Anyone who knows me knows I do not prescribe to this interpretation and in MDI we have moved away from the “doing as you are told” model and it is no longer acceptable to do something solely because this is how it has always been done.

For any entity to survive there needs to be some semblance of order, there does not, however, need to be blind unquestioning devotion.  If there were, you’d have a cult.  Here are some definitions:

Earn – to acquire through service

Honor – to respect greatly and hold in high esteem.

Rank – a series of things in a line; a degree of dignity, eminence.

These definitions allow us to embrace another way to look at this tenet.

Find your place in the legacy of men.

Each of us is part of a legacy.  There are men who have come before us and there will be those who come after. Where do we fit it in?  Will you be remembered as someone who gave or someone who took?  Earn your place in MDI by virtue of your way of being, you accountability, integrity and passion.  And here is the important part:  honor that rank by continuing to adhere to those things once you have been placed in apposition of leadership.

The honor is not what followers bestow upon you; it is what you hold in the space as a leader.  You honor your men for being good followers and watching their back.  You honor the trust they have given to you by holding it sacred and not acting for your own personal benefit but for the good of the community.  Being a leader does not mean you are entitled to anything.  To honor your title you most hold yourself to a higher standard.

Leadership is hard but the rewards are great.  Like a redwood, the longer you maintain your position they more you solidify your place on this earth.  The respect and support you have engendered from your men will pay dividends.

I have often believed that the best part of being a leader is stepping down.  If you have done your job well, you still have the mantle of respect from your mine but you are no longer looked upon as the man who needs to get the job done.  That freedom often allows me to be more effective.  Since I am not in the heat of battle I have the opportunity to bring perspective and my wisdom and experience to the process.  However, to honor my rank I need to be vigilant and provide my insight to the current leader and offer it up just as that, my opinion.  If he chooses not to follow my advice, I need to let it go.  He is deserving of the chance to learn his listens.  Things need not always go my way.  There is nothing in my mind more dishonorable than a shadow leader, like Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello.  Someone sitting at the King’s feet and forever whispering in his ear.

Simply put, having earned my seat at the table, I must respect those who came before me and honor those who will follow by leaving my seat just a little better than I found it.

I have often written about leadership styles and made references to the difference between Warrior leaders (one focused solely on the immediate task) and King leaders (one focused on long term goals). Now let’s look at two of the other predominant male archetypes, the Lover and Magician, and dissect their methods of communication and when each is most appropriate.

In the Jungian lexicon of mature male archetypes, the Lover is often held as the great communicator, one who can effectively capture what is said and evoke empathy with the speaker and in turn communicate clearly to the masses. Lovers are often considered great Lovers not because of their sexual prowess but because of their ability to connect with their partner. Anyone who has ever had any consistent success with women will tell you it is because they are perceived (that being the operative word) as great and empathetic listener. Lovers excel because of their ability to be present and live in the now. Much like the Warrior they have become disciplined in a form of tunnel vision. They are unconcerned with what’s next and often are not connected to the bigger picture. Often Lovers who are bombarded with big picture thinking find themselves becoming withdrawn and falling into some sort of addictive behavior and allows them to get back to tunnel vision mode. Alternatively they turn to an extremist environment where the now is actually life and death. Someone jumping out of an airplane doesn’t really have the luxury of contemplating what might be for dinner.

Contrast this with the communication mastery of the mature Magician: one who is a master of the question. Magicians are rarely wedded to the now and certainly have little use for five minutes ago, let alone the distant past. Instead they are driven by the possibilities of the unknown. Their communications can often appear vague and overly optimistic. After all, their world is one of limitless possibilities. When a Magician feels weighed done by the present of saddled by the past they will usually default in either of two directions: that of the authoritarian or liars, declaring something as the absolute truth so as to shut down further conversation; or the innocent, feigning ignorance as a means of avoiding any responsibility for the immediate conversation.

So how does having access to this road map help anyone? To start, understand what type of communicator you are. Do you get more enjoyment out of providing play by play or forecasting possible results? Do you look to build consensus or identify loopholes you can exploit in the future? Keep in mind that these are not mutually exclusive tendencies. Some people are adept at moving between Lover and Magician but as with being a righty or lefty, even someone who is ambidextrous will have a dominant side.

Once your know your “side” and have sufficiently embraced it – by that I mean if it is in you nature to be empathetic don’t try to kill that part of you by attempting to become exploitive; conversely, if you are adept at problem solving, sitting around a campfire singing Kumbayah is properly not high on your to do list, so don’t beat yourself up for being cold and calculating – look at the demands of your immediate situation and ask yourself, “am I the best person to take this on?”. For example: placating an angry mob is no place for a Magician – which is probably why so many “witches” wound up being burnt at the stake; their inability to tap into the emotion of the mob and comfort it by saying the right thing – regardless of whether or not they believed any of it – lead to their demise. On the other hand, the geeks we remember from our childhood have often gone off to be ridiculously successful because they were able to reject the comfort of belonging and trade it in for the possibilities that come from exploiting the inefficiencies in the system. In short, Lovers see the good in the moment and can harness it to move forward while Magicians see the possibility that comes from identifying what’s wrong and figuring out how to exploit the inefficiency.

A really simplistic example of this is the whole Tea Party movement. They have identified what’s wrong – big government – but their solution is fairly simplistic – less government. I submit there are probably very few, if any, Magician communicators or thinkers in the Tea Party. Magicians are the guys on Wall Street, the folks who created derivatives and hedges funds to exploit the inefficiencies in the market. They were less concerned with repair and more concerned with positioning themselves for the next wave.

So before I get too political, I’ll call it quits for now and will try to grapple with where my style fits in on this spectrum. Next time I will address how to actually apply one of these styles as a tool in effective leadership.

I am in the process of recuperating from the MDI Annual Convention in Las Vegas. Year two and it was a huge success. What made it successful was that we built on last year’s inaugural convention. We offered more than 40 seminars this year and had over 280 attendees. The goal is to keep growing and to expand this beyond MDI and hopefully move to venues other than Vegas but that’s a different post.
The thing that made this year a success is that we did this with women.

Now I know that sounds curious, a men’s organization having its annual convention with women?
It was a delicate dance to make this work: in part because there were many men who were vehemently opposed to the notion of women entering our “sanctuary”; then there was the challenge of being committed to allowing men to feel free to be who they are without filters; as well as the challenge of taking on the responsibility for shepparding the women into our thing and setting the parameters around where they were and were not welcome without giving off the vibe that they were second class citizens.
In short it was a great opportunity to take on some real life lessons. The reality is women are a part of the world I need to operate in every day. I can’t sequester myself from them and still be effective in the world. That doesn’t mean I can’t step away now and then and recharge my batteries by being with the men. And make no mistake women can drain you, even if it is in a good way. It is no coincidence that after sex most men want to take a nap. Being with men however, is usually an adrenalin jolt. I don’t know the physiology of this but I definitely feel different physically and emotionally when I step into a circle of men or women. There is also clearly a time when men do need to be sequestered to work some stuff out. Anger is unfortunately imbedded in our DNA and passing through raw anger is usually the gateway to some real transformative emotional work. However, my experience has been women can be terrified to stand in the presence of that emotional venting and their presence can actually stifle the work that needs to be done.
Vegas however, was not that place. It was a celebration and a gathering. A place where we got to honor some men and doing so in the presence of their women makes that moment all the more powerful and I am sure helped these guys when they got back to the privacy of their hotel room.
The thing I got is all the stuff I thought I needed to do to make this work with the women was for the most part unnecessary. They got it and acted accordingly. If you set the right context most people will follow your lead and go with the program. Those who choose not to are quickly corralled by the group vibe.
So the lesson is simple: give some thought to how you want something to play out and signal it before the event. I feel most of the work is in signaling the expectations and concerns. The most dangerous tact is to just show up and see what happens. It is a recipe for disaster.

The Code of Honor was created by the men of what was then known as the Sterling Men’s Divisions. It contains 15 different tenets. It was intended to reflect some basic core values that all the men could rally behind, support and use as a benchmark for the ways of being we could expect from one another.

In the late 1990s some men from the Western Region (the Bay area around San Francisco) created an ark which contained 15 different pieces of wood, one for each tenet. Each stick was made of a specific type of wood and bore a specific design that reflected the way in which the men of the Western Region related to the tenets of the Code of Honor. The ark has since made its way throughout North America and men throughout MDI have had the opportunity to connect with it. I had the opportunity to safe guard it for a while and was moved to write a little about my relationship to each tenet. What follows is the treatise that was created as a companion piece to the ark.

Fight Only Honorable Battles

The wood representing this tenet is Laurel Bay – The leaves of the laurel tree were used to make laurel wreaths that the Romans used to decorate their men of honor.  Upon returning from great conquests warriors were sent off to rest on their laurels and to take in the gifts of gratitude bestowed upon them from a thankful community.

The symbol that reflects this tenet is s Spear and shield.  These symbols of hand-to-hand combat reflect the purest form of combat.  Hand to hand combat is considered the most honorable way to engage in battle because it requires combatants to come face to face and to depend on their individual skill and resolve rather than the quality or power of synthetic weapons.  Often the victor in hand-to-hand combat is the man who wants it the most.  The man who in his heart believes he has the most to fight for.  Whose battle is the most honorable.

For many, the definition of battle is an armed engagement, a war.  But a lesser definition defines battle as a conflict, a struggle.  For example the conflicts and struggles we fight everyday with the demons and fears that lurk deep inside each of us.

Self-doubt, shame, anger.  Taking on these emotions are the honorable battles we can fight each and every day.  The honor lies in acknowledging these opponents, bringing them into the light and taking them on no matter how ugly it looks.  The battle becomes honorable when you turn to other and ask for their help. Chances are that if you find yourself fighting a battle alone, it is because you are fighting to protect your ego or some personal agenda.  By fighting an honorable battle together we strengthen our relationships and build a foundation for a stronger and healthier community. 

In order to live one’s life fighting only honorable battles, one must:

·         Understand what there is that’s worth fighting for

·         Understand what is not worth fighting for

·         Have enough mastery over one’s ego to never fight battles in defense of one’s ego.

Once you are able to place emotion aside, you will find it is much easier to discern whether it is a battle worth fighting.

There are certain things we take for granted.  One is that it is important to have a well balanced diet.  I honestly don’t know how true that is but I had the whole concept challenged right before my very eyes.  I spent a week at the Hippocrates Health Institute in West Palm Beach, Florida. http://www.hippocratesinst.org/?gclid=CJigr8qy0KMCFcK77Qodq1vTuQ   The place is premised on the notion that for the most part the body can heal itself so it sets out to provide it guests with the tools necessary to take control of their own well-being, to allow their body to maximize its potential and heal itself naturally.  What that means in lay mans terms is de-tox.  Both in what you put in and how you get it out.

Hippocrates offers raw food.  Not just raw food but alkaline raw food.  Fruit is off the menu.  No milk, eggs, fish, just lots of sprouts, some veggies, greens and juice.  Not fruit juice but wheat grass juice. No coffee, no salt, no sugar…….  I can see you all cringing.  I know I did going into this.  Giving up coffee was a bitch.  Giving up cooked food was no picnic either.  But I did it with the mantra that it was only for a week. I would think about that first cup of Starbuck’s at the airport on the way home.

A funny thing happened mid-week.  I actually liked the way I was feeling.  I wasn’t really missing any of the food I had given up.  I’ve been back two weeks and I am still eating raw.  I feel great.  Cut 50 points off my blood pressure and shed 15 pounds (I was not a tubby to begin with) and have lots of energy.  Am I going to do this forever, probably not but what it did for me was wake me up to how unconscious I was to what I was putting in my body.  I had dinner with some lawyers last week at Morton’s steak house of all places.  I had my salad, they gorged.  And gorge they did.  I noticed how unhealthy they looked.  There is part of me that hates that I am becoming that guy (you know the one who is acutely aware of how sickly everyone is looking) but there you have it.

I am not going to do a blog on health, you can that elsewhere from persons much well versed than me but I will comment on the human condition, that s what I do.  What blew me away at Hippo U was how once the focus on food dissolved people came face to face with their emotional shit.  Drowning your sorrows in a salad doesn’t seem to cut it.  I witnessed a number of people going through the emotional roller coaster.  I was pleasantly surprised to speak with 70 year old men wop acknowledged that in two short weeks they were talking about and revealing intimate secrets to strangers that they had never spoken about before.

I think another thing that drove the emotional catharsis for many was that there were no newspapers, no TV and none of the numbing g distractions most of us delve into daily.  Sure there were people there wedded to their laptops and blackberries but that was the minority.  For the most part people were there simply to support others in getting healthy.  It was not exactly on big love fest but it was close.  So here I sit, lighter, emotionally, physically and psychically.  We will see how long it lasts.  I am still committed to a good cigar though.  Some things never change.