I'm Back

I have been woefully remiss in attending to this website the past few months. It sucks when life and in this case death gets in the way of partaking in self indulgent pleasures.
So in the past two months I have been on trial in Kansas City (we won, staving off a potential $1.5 B in liability — rest assured I actually represented the good guys here); then I had to shoot out to California for a 24 hour turn around for another case that was supposed to start trial but got adjourned a month (the only benefit of the trip was I had the pleasure of sitting alongside a former Playboy playmate on my way out West –very former but she still looks great); I was elected President of MDI, a month later we elected a new POTUS who has already begun to provide an invaluable roadmap for me to follow in the art of effective leadership; two men who I came to know and admire tremendously through my men’s work died unexpectedly — weeks apart; my daughter turned 13; the financial infra structure of the United States has crashed and burned and some collegues of mine are presently caught up in the chaos in India.
I am sure there is more but that is enough for me to dwell on for now. So here goes.
First the election. My guy won. Although he wasn’t always my guy but Barrack Obama has weathered the onslaught of the media and the rigors of an endless campaign and has done so very gracefully. I have heard from people who knew the Big O way back when when he was a summer associate at the Chicago law firm of Sidley and Austin that he was always ambitious and just a tad arrogant (although I suspect if he were white the descriptive word would have been cocky or confident but I digress.) I haven’t seen any of that arrogance in his public persona. He has done a great job in demystifying himself. I mean the guys plays hoops. When have we ever had a president who while in office embraced a very physical and sweaty sport as a means of relaxing. No golf or sailing here and no solitary jogging or chopping wood. Basketball is a street game that places heightened emphasis on teamwork and requires a participant to survey the court, quickly identify an opening and seize the moment. What’s not to like about a leader who calls this his game.
I actually am lookingt forward to have a real family take up residence in the White House. The Obamas are not moving in with a sense that this was their birthright, rather I think they feel they got there by being able to be nimble enough to seize on the moment just like a skilled point guard. This was not supposed to be Barrack’s year. I think everyone thought that his moment was at least eight years off. But the Obama campaign clearly changed the game which any one in the marketing biz will tell you is necessary when you want to move quickly from obscurity to front runner. But the key to Obama’s success in my mind was his ability to shift again and then again with each changing benchmark in the campaign. McCain made the mistake of riding his psuedo “maverick” status way too long, he scored a major coup in naming Sarah Palinas his running mate but didn’t know how to follow up on the initial bounce, and Joe the Plumber……. somebody get the Draino.
But Obama kept shifting. If I were to be cynical — which I can be — I’d go so far as to say that things like the Reverand Wright bump in the road were actually planned dramas designed to give Obama some street cred as a man of principle who knows when to cut ties and move on.
But leaving aside the results here, we have got to change the system. The campaign goes on way too long, places too much leverage in a few swing states and doesn’t really serve the country very well. I am not sure it makes sense to go through this wholesale overhaul every eight years when we shift parties and change ideologies because the folks in office got a little too full of themselves and abused their power. While I’d like to think that won’t be the case this go round, the reality is Joe Biden will not be running for President in 8 years — he’ll be too old, and if Hillary is the next Secretary of State she will be too removed from the domestic political areana to have traction as a viable candidate. That means in about five years the positioning and politicing will begin again and the Democrats will begin to cannibalize themselves to both rise above the fray and get whatever spoils are to be had from the low hanging fruit before the country inches back towards the right. It’ll be nice to be proven wrong though. In the mean time I’ll keep me fingers crossed and wait and see.

It's About the Process Not the Results

As the election of our next commander in chief is upon us here in the US, I think it apropos to discuss my own experience with the election process. A few weeks ago I had the honor of being elected to be the next (and fourth) President of MDI, the men’s’ organization I have been involved with for some time. The operative word here is elected, not selected. Actually, I had originally been selected to be the next guy but that process hit a speed bump when the Chair of the MDI Board felt that it was the Board’s responsibility to ensure that the next man was in fact the best available man for the job.

Now that seems logical but in truth it rarely happens that way. In most corporations the outgoing CEO has his successor picked and the board is asked to rubber stamp the selection. Most CEO’s are adroit enough to realize the import of that decision and they go outside the organization while looking within for their successor. However, in recent memory there have been many instances of the corporate reigns being handed to a “team player” who had served the outgoing CEO well. That misguided sense of loyalty has often had disastrous results. I think there is a real difference in the skills set between being an invaluable number two and in being an effective leader. But that is a discussion for another time. For me, for right now I want to talk about what it meant to be elected rather than just responding to the “it’s your time” tap on the shoulder.

Initially I was angered. I felt like I had earned the right to take over leadership of the organization and I felt the outgoing President should have been given deference for the choice he made with counsel of his operations team. However, after the process, I feel the exact opposite. I think I’d feel that way even if I’d lost.

The process worked like this. A team of about nine men got together and put together a checklist of attributes and experience that they felt the MDI President should have. They went through our 1000 plus membership list and came up a list of over 100 candidates who met those basic qualifications. Then the committee, lead by Len Guida (who really should consider going into the executive recruitment business) reached out to each of these men, told them about the process and asked if they were interested. For many men the response was, “I had never thought about it before.” For others it was “why me.” For a few more it was “thanks but no thanks.” From those initial conversations a list of 35 men emerged. The top 16 candidates were then interviewed by sub-committees with questions designed to uncover their vision, their reasons for wanting the job, and any obstacles that might conceivably come between them and being able to be successful in the job. Those candidates were graded and the top three were presented to the board for consideration. The thee of us were then intrviewwed by the full board as well as the operations team, in seperate interviews durin ou annual leaderaship meeting. The questions were and promptd a lot of introspection for me. After some deliberation, I wa advised that I had been unanimously selected.

There are four things that, in my mind, made this process brilliant. The first is that it engaged the elders in the organization with a meaningful role to play in the ongoing viability of what we do. For anyone who has ever been at the top of the food chain in any organization, finding your place in that organization after you step down can be difficult. Often times men leave and move on to other entitesbecause they get frustrated by their inability to contribute in a meaningful way. For two months this process brought those men off the bench. It also allowed the organization to remind many of these men that their prior contributions were held in high regard and not forgotten.

The second thing is it engaged the entire organization. Men were talking about the process. I got phone calls from men I hadn’t spoken to in years who heard I was up for the post and wanted to wish me well. More importantly it made the notion of any man serving as president an accessible idea. Men have since asked themselves, “why not me?”. The third reason is some what related. The two other men who were selected along with me had not been on anyone’s radar prior to the search. When I heard that Bob Irwin and Charles Gjers were the other candidates, I actually felt relieved because I knew that either man would do an exemplary job as the next President and I would have no problem supporting them. My being chosen semed less urgent to me. They were two men with markedly different backgrounds and skills sets from me. It shifted the notion that there was some special criteria that men needed to satisfy to do the job and it also put into question how important “experience” really was. While experience is a valued commodity it need not be the determining factor.

Which brings us to the fourth reason: Through the process the board and operations team had to come to terms with “why Spierer?” They didn’t get to fall back on the easy answer of “he earned it” or “because that’s who Rich - the outgoing President - chose.” They all had to grapple with the question of whether I was the right man to have the job now. I had the chance to lay my expected challenges on the table and to address why I might not be the best man for the job as well as putting forth my vision and proposed agenda. I think that full disclosure will be critical my success. I was asked some hard questions and felt free to provide answers that came from my heart and say what I felt rather than what I thought I should say. There is definitely a freedom to that. I do not think that I have to go into the job with a facade of who I should be. They elected me, for who I am. Notwithstanding the fact they might not have liked everything I had to say. I am heading into the job confident rather than cautious because I acknowledged that I will inevitably stumble now and then and everyone was given some insight into why that might occur. I am driven by the excitement of having been elected over two men I respect highly who could have easily done the job rather than feeling burdened because I took the job because there was no one else to do it.

So at the end I feel that the real success wasthe process and what it has done to energize the organization by both acknowledging the efforts of the men who have laid the foundation for what we do and for inspiring the next generation of leaders to take ownership of what we do now and can do in the future.

If only I could say the same thing about the current process we have in place to pick our next commander in chief. But I’ll wait until Wednesday to comment on that.

Don't Be Sorry, Be Accountable

There are few phrases that ring more hollow than the words, “I’m sorry.” Don’t agree? Imagine your friend borrows your car and returns it with a tremendous dent. He of course, looks sheepish and says, “I’m sorry.” Are you feeling any better? I don’t think so. Let’s put the shoe on the other foot. You just went out with a woman that you know your friend was pining for. Big time. It went well. Really well. You brag about it to everyone else but tell your buddy you are sorry. Are you really?
The phrase has become this universal get out of jail free card when in fact all it is in abdication of responsibility. Now don’t misunderstand where I am coming from. I am not telling you not to feel bad when you screw up. When you screw up, it should burn. In my mind, when you do or say something wrong and it hurts someone else, it is inexcusable and rightfully it should tear at your insides. So, shouldn’t you say you’re sorry? Only if you want to marginalize your relationship with the person you just wronged and cheapen the impact of your intentional action. The time for “I’m sorry” is when you inadvertently step on someone’s toe or bump into someone on line and spill coffee on them. But it should stop there. If you intended to do what you did, own it. If your actions were the result of your oversight and carelessness, clean it up.
Hurt happens in the moment. In real time, to real people. Cleaning it up is not an intellectual exercise that gets remedied by explaining either it or you away.
Revenge is visceral and the Sicilians had it right when they said it is a meal best served cold. My advice is to do everything in your power to avoid having to pay the bill for that meal.
So how do you do that? As much as I’d like to think of myself as enlightened, every now and then I succumb to dark thoughts. Tthere are times when my thoughts fall victim to stereotyping. If I am in Disneyworld or some supermarket and I see an obese person trolling around on one those motorized carts, my thought process will lapse into a less than flattering synopsis about how they got there. I can give lots of examples where I think things that I am not too proud of. Does that make me evil, a bad person? That is somebody else’s call. I do however believe what it does make me is human. I think we all are. We are all capable of acts of incredible stupidity or worse gross insensitivity. And in those moments, it has been my experience that merely saying, “I’m sorry.” is never enough. Nor is whipping out my resume of prior good deeds.
So what do I do? First, I try very hard not to say or do those stupid things again and I never try to justify or minimize them. Ever. What I do when I really screw up is to make a point of understanding how the lapse occurred and to try to figure my degree of accountability in the break down. I have found that understanding what happened and committing to take action to ensure the mistake does not happen again goes a lot further than a blanket apology. Even more powerful, especially in a relationship that really means something to me is having the balls to look the person I offended in the eye and I tell them that I am sorry for having let them down or hurting them. Not for the words or actions – because if I said it or did it some part of me meant to -- but for the result. You can’t take back the words or erase the deeds but you can embrace and be accountable for the result. Now, I will cop to the fact that this is not easy. It takes practice. Looking someone in the eye in and of itself is not easy, let alone when you know you did something wrong. But you can get there with some practice and resolve.
So is conceding that “I feel your pain” enough? No, it is just the start. The magic is in what comes after. It is in taking personal accountability for the results. It is in saying, “I want to make this right by you”. The most empowering statement you can make is to ask “what do you need me to do to make this right?” It is probably the scariest offer you can make. Because in that moment, you are giving away your trust, not your power but your trust.
I can think of no better scenario to highlight this than a scene from the movie Gandhi. In the midst of the riots between Muslims and Hindus that overtook India shortly after the British left, Gandhi declared that he would go on a hunger strike until the fighting stopped. As he lay feebly on his straw mat he gave his followers the opportunity to sit with him. One man came to him distraught. In the frenzy he had struck and killed a Muslim neighbor and burnt his house to the ground. The dead man had a small son who was now orphaned. The man beseeched Gandhi for forgiveness. He desperately wanted some way to regain his honor. Clearly, an apology was not going to be enough. Gandhi’s suggestion was simple. “You must raise the boy as our own,” he said. The Hindu man quickly agreed. But Gandhi did not stop there. He continued, “And you must raise him as a Muslim.” In a moment, the relinquishing of his trust was rewarded with an act that would allow him to regain his integrity and find inner peace.
The tightrope that you are about to traverse by seeking to do the right thing can’t be understated. Nor can the human dynamic at work here. Most people will feel really uneasy with being offered the opportunity to hold you accountable. When asked, “What can I do to make this right, “they will probably attempt to brush it off by saying, “no, I am fine. I don’t need anything.”
That is where you need to go back and get them to understand, that they just won the karmic lottery. They can ask for anything in that moment and you will do your best to make it happen. You need to get them to understand that the moment to get clean is right then and there. They don’t get to say, “I’m okay” and pass on their right to extract their pound of flesh only to raise the incident in a week, a month, or maybe two years. They need to get that this is it. Let them take some time to think about it. But this is it. And when they insist that, “no it really is okay” only to take out the short list somewhere down the road – and they will -- when they are trying to wiggle out of a moment just after they screwed something up and hurt you, you need to be firm and remind them of the conversation. They had their chance and it passed. They passed on it. It’s over.
The first time you try this dance it might get ugly. But if there is relationship there, a real relationship, they will get it. And the next time you screw up and you make an effort to clean up, they will get it. And they might test you and ask for something really outrageous. Do your best to give it to them. Be true to your word and make good on the offer. Of course if you don’t think you can deliver on the request be clear about that up front. If you agree to do something you know you can’t, you are only going to perpetuate this viscous circle of failures and attempts to make it all right.
So what is the point of all this? It is all about self respect. There is tremendous power in owning your mistakes. By standing front and center and being willing to take the hit you are making a statement. By rationalizing or minimizing what just happened you are only giving away your own power and opening yourself up to being spoon fed half hearted apologies and rationalizations when someone has done you wrong.

The Circle Game

I often get asked, “What exactly do you and your guys do when you get together?”
My answer is usually, you just need to be there to get it. Sometimes it is easier to explain what we are not. I cringe when we are referred to as a “group”. In my mind that connotes some sense of self help or a place for men to gripe about their day. That’s not us. We prefer to use the term team to capture the essence of our circles.
Teams tend to have a purpose. Ours is to ensure that men succeed at what ever it is they set out to do. It is not always the same for each man and we don’t get there by offering advice or how to’s necessarily. No one is touting a vision of what men or any one man should want, do or aspire to be. Rather we ask a man, what do you want? No what do you think you should want? For example, I have witnessed men come to understand that their job, relationship or even their lifestyle is just not working for them. So to some extent we are in the business of getting to the ugly truth.
Then we try to get the man to get a handle on why he wants what he wants. Oftentimes men, and women for that matter, find that they are chasing something that they are really not committed to, so it is no wonder that they eventually fail at attaining it. How many times do you need to declare that you want to lose weight before you realize that you are perfectly happy with your love handles? We work hard at getting to the “why” and sometimes it gets ugly because I have often found the answer I initially give to the why question is not really my core truth. It might be tempered by a sense of obligation, a desire to be liked, or colored by what I have been marketed to believe I want but it usually is not enough of a why for me to fight for it. My guys will see through that. For example, when I was in New York at a very large and powerful law firm, I got to appreciate that the power, prestige and money no matter how attractive it seemed on paper was not enough to keep me happy at the end of the day.
And when I discovered that it was not because my men had any clearer sense of things than I did but because through the diversity of opinion that came out of that circle some thing clicked for me. In part it was hearing what wasn’t or hadn’t worked for other men, or maybe it was hearing a man talk about the heartbreak and the joy of being a father, something was not even on my radar at the time. In retrospect, a lot came to me from someplace totally unexpected. I remember when I first joined my men’s team, as men introduced themselves and what they did for a living; there I was calculating in my head their net worth. At that first meeting I got this perverse satisfaction from the belief that collectively, the six of them maybe made what I did in a year. But over time I got to ask myself, so what? We butted heads often enough for me to start questioning my comfortable little world and all the assumptions I was making around happiness.
Which brings me to another thing we are not, we are not a circle of friends. As a matter of fact, I have had men on my team that I just don’t like and often times that at first I can’t understand. But I have come to respect them and to trust them implicitly when they proved to be men of their word. And of course not even man turned out to be men of integrity, and there were lessons in that discovery as well. There is a way of being amongst us that is just palpable to a stranger. It is bond built on trust and strengthened by consistency. Friends want to be liked; we just strive to be respected.
That brings us to the third prong of the game. A man states what he wants, comes to understand why he wants it and then we ask, “so what are you prepared to do to get there?” If we are anything, it is a circle of men who gain honor by keeping our word. Since keeping your word is so important to us, we strive to ensure that a man knows what he is committing to. The initial commitment may come easy for the man but the job of the men of the circle is to inspect that declaration to ensure that it is grounded in reality.
For example, a man says he wants to get in shape, understands it’s important because he wants to be able to have the stamina to run around with his kids and declares he is going to lose 20 pounds in the next six months. So we ask, “When is the last time you lost 20 pounds in six months”? Or ever? Usually the answer is never, so we engage the man in a reality check. What do you need to know and do to make this happen? Usually the honest answer is “I don’t know.” Which is another thing our circle is, a place where men can embrace their ignorance, not as a bad thing, not as something to be ashamed of but as an opportunity. In the not knowing lies the opportunity to create something out of whole cloth. And our circle offers a place to brain storm, to hear of other men’s struggles or successes and to pick the pieces that fit.
And then comes the game plan. And it is usually an aggressive game plan. Because we pride ourselves in being a place where men can fail and can do so brilliantly. If you think about it there is little to celebrate solely because you easily attained something you knew you could do. There is often little chance to learn from easy success. But failure? Oh boy!!! It means you are in the game and every time you stumble you learn a better way to take that missed step. The circle works because you not only have men who witness your travails and do so without judgment but men who are enthusiastic about getting you off the ground and brushing the dirt off and getting you back in the game. You don’t get docked pay for failing in the circle, you don’t necessarily face ridicule.
And when you win, there is no jealously and no one- upmanship. There is just a sense of a collective job well done. Enthusiasm is infectious and winning is a wonderful drug. So at the end of the day we are a circle of men who love the high of witnessing other men winning in their lives. The competitiveness is not the driver; rather it is the sense that every man in the circle had a hand in the success.

Sculpting Happiness

How many times have you thought to yourself or heard someone else say, “If I only had (fill in the blank) I’d be happy.” I’ve actually stopped playing that game with myself. The reason is fairly simple. I don’t really know what will make me happy. I might think I know and my vision might make perfect sense when the idea comes into my head but until I get there I have no idea. And therein lies the problem, rarely do I get to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I have found it is easy to get distracted by a new dream and a new “if I only had…. ." I have come to find that chasing a fantasy is rarely fulfilling because even if I do attain what I set out for there is always the desire for the next thing which then leaves me dissatisfied with what I have.

It is often said that it is much more difficult to give something up that has given you pleasure than to live without ever experiencing something that you desire. There have been many studies that have concluded that people living in third world countries in extreme poverty perceive themselves to be very happy. Simply it is because they don’t know and can’t comprehend what they don’t have. We on the other hand might have a different take on it. But they literally are blissful in their ignorance. Meanwhile we Westerners get inundated with images of what we should want and we develop this twisted sense of longing that some how what we don’t have is the key to our happiness. I’d like to suggest giving up that ghost and taking a different cut at this happiness thing.

Instead of trying to attain what you don’t have take a look a what you do have and ask yourself a simple question, “Is this serving me?” “Is it satisfying my immediate needs?” The same way it is harder to live without something that you have come accustomed to deriving pleasure from, a short cut to happiness is giving up the stuff that is making you miserable.

Now that might sound selfish but let me put it into a different context. A man is walking down the street in Florence, Italy and sees an artist chiseling away at a block of granite. The artist is standing in front of his gallery and inside are some pretty intricate and impressive sculptures. The man knows this s genius at works so he stops for a while and watches as the form of a majestic falcon comes into shape on this former piece of granite. He then asks the artist in amazement, “How can you create such a beautiful piece of work out of a simple block of stone?” The artist looks at him quizzically and says, “It is really pretty easy. I just chip away at everything that is not a falcon.” For him the artistry is in the act of removal. I urge you to take the same tact with your life.

I submit that the odds are better that you will more accurately identify things that make you unhappy than to identify things that you have yet to experience that will actually make you happy. So go for the low hanging fruit first. Identify the shit list. And ask yourself, can I remove this from my life. If so, drop it. That includes people by the way. I believe there are very definitely people I have kept in my life simply out of habit who were toxic to me. When I finally let them go, I felt lighter and I really didn’t miss them. It is a lot like losing weight. You rarely hear someone complaining because they lost weight. Lightness equals contentment. Even incremental weight loss will feel good – provided you focus on what you lost rather than what you have yet to lose. I find it to be the same for responsibilities that I never wanted to take on in the first place. But that’s a whole ‘nother thread. For now take stock of what you have but really don’t want and commit to doing something about it. Let it go. I know it might not seem easy but there really is lightness to being.

Love Like A Dog

I’ve come to accept that dogs and kids are often my best teachers. There seems to be a lot of wisdom gained from observing those who act from someplace other than their head.
For example, when I get home, regardless of when that is, my 80-pound Labradoodle, DJ, comes bursting out of the house, he is not thinking “you’re late” or “have you been out playing with other dogs?” No, he is genuinely glad to see me. I know this because he shows up every time with two to three tennis balls in his mouth and dutifully stands there until I take them and throw them, over and over again until he just gets exhausted or, on the rare occasion, he finds something else that peeks his interest. Our relationship is in the moment. The best emotional connections are like that. There is no yesterday, no tomorrow. There is just now. And if now feels good, my dog keeps doing it until it stops being satisfying. So imagine your relationships were like that?

Imagine if you gave your self permission to be in a relationship because you enjoyed it. I don’t think DJ feels obligated to chase the balls I throw. I think he does it first because it is something he loves and in part because it gives him a sense of purpose.

Now I know the notion of doing something solely becasue you enjoy it sounds a little hedonistic but there is another side to the relationship. DJ is loyal to me and that loyalty is unconditional. If I chose not to throw him a ball one night he will still follow me into the house and sit by my feet. If I put my face in front of his, he’ll lick it. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t hold a grudge. After all why should he? I know where to scratch behind his ear. I know the little things that make him happy, like spooning peanut butter inside the hollow of his bone. Thee bond of the relationship is he remembers those things I do for him that he loves and more importantly, he quickly forgets those things I do thta he does not like. Again, imagine the way you would view your relationships if you cherished the good stuff and quickly disregarded the bad. After all if you really think about, most of the good stuff is done through intention, while the bad usually stems from some thoughtless happenstance that rarely get repeated.

So how do I know DJ and I have such a great relationship? Well the introduction of a second dog into the house last year didn’t change anything. DJ still comes out hoping I’ll throw a few balls. The little guy, a springer spaniel, has boundless energy but he knows that the ball throwing is something special between me and DJ. All during the back and forth, the Springer, Patsy, just runs around joyously in pointless circles, happy to be there. There will be times when I turn my attention to Patsy and DJ seems happy for a chance to catch his breath. The two of them understand the pecking order and no one is looking to change anything. DJ is still my dog and he knows that I will always be there for him. Our relationship has become a happy little threesome and who can argue with that?.

Honor the Truth

The Code of Honor was created by the men of what was then known as the Sterling Men’s Divisions. It was intended to reflect some very 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.



Back 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. Charlie Fleischheimer spearheaded that effort. 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 opprotunity 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.


Honor the Truth



Wood: Madrone – The Madrone trees grow on hillsides, intermingled with many other species of tree. They do not dominate their environment and from a distance are unremarkable. They are easily overlooked. But on closer inspection, their bark gives away a hint of the rich beautiful wood that lies within.



Symbol: Sun & Moon – These are universal symbols of light. The sun projects the light and the moon reflects it. Without the moon’s reflection there would be no evidence of the sun’s presence. For this reason Zen Buddhism considers the moon to be the symbol of enlightenment for it captures the light and sends it outward.



The whole notion of there actually being something that is universally true is something of a lie.



Personal truth is just like fingerprints or DNA, it is consistently unique for everyone . So if that is the case why have a tenet that asks men to honor the truth? Well because that is exactly what it is asking you to do. Honor the truth, not just yours but others.



So how do you get there? Start by asking yourself a simple question, Why am I here?

From there the questions peel away like an onion.

What do I hope to get for myself? What do I hope to give back to my family, community, the planet? Who itch do I hope to get scratched from all this giving? What do I really really want?



Asking these questions is in essence what most would characterize as engaging in the search for truth. This search lies at the heart of every religion and drives every philosophical construct.



Buddhist say that when you perceive truth, all else drops away, ego vanishes and there is nothing more than that moment. A passage of the New Testament of the Bible says, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” It really is that simple, so long as you keep it personal.



The complications set in when you try to impose your truth on others. Once you accept that truth is a very personal thing, you come to realize that no one person and no set of people can claim ownership to it.



All of us have experienced moments when our truth about something has become crystal clear to us, sometimes painfully so. I know when I am there not because it resonates in my head but because it resonates elsewhere, in my heart, my guts my balls. Suddenly I feel enveloped with a sense of clarity and for the moment I experience a feeling of exhilaration or of calmness and freedom. Everything falls into place and I see things that I must have looked at a dozen times with a new perspective.



However, just a little word of caution, this tenet does not say “Tell the truth,” rather it says honor it.

Sometimes it is better to hold the truth in your heart than to reveal it to someone who might not be ready to face it.



For example, when you hear the question, “Honey, do I look fat in this dress?”



So when do you speak the truth? You can’t really pick the time, rather it picks you. If we suddenly declared, “It is time to honor the truth.” Each of us would unconsciously or maybe even consciously start erecting internal mazes that would make it exceedingly difficult to get to the truth.



In MDI we strive to create an environment that fosters respect for sincerity, honor and genuineness. To create such an environment is a challenge. In such an environment I have found there is an opportunity to learn something. Often it comes not from something that I say or think I know but from what I hear come out of the mouth of another man. When I am listening to another without judgment, that’s when the truth has a chance to bubble to the surface.

The Hapiness of Contentment

Some time ago a friend of mine asked me a question that haunted me for the longest time. We were walking along the beach in Santa Barbara, California when he asked “Are you happy or content?” At first I found it inconceivable that I could be anything but happy while walking the beach in Santa Barbara. So I took it as a trick question, dwelled on it a bit and came to realize that if I were being honest with myself, for the most part I was no more than content. That of course made me immediately miserable and it took some time before I was able to feel happy about just being content.
Let me explain. Happiness is this sort of abstract state of mind that can really only exist in comparison to something else. To be happy, you normally need to have recently been miserable so that you have something to gauge that happiness against. That or some really good drugs. In both instances though the euphoria rarely lasts. So I have come to view happiness as artificial and very illusory.
Contentment on the other hand requires an answer to a pretty simple question; do I have everything I need? Not want, but need. If the answer is yes, I should be content. That is unless I let the demons of need creep into my psyche and tell me that there are things I should be wanting and things that I deserve to have. Then of course I hop on the merry-go-round of despair, thinking that I can’t be happy because there is more that I want. Then when I get what I want, while I might be happy in the moments shortly after I get it, that is pretty fleeting. Typically I realize that what I thought I wanted is not what I needed to make me happy. So I then go back to being miserable until I eventually think, well if I just had…… and back on board the merry-go-round I go.
So these days I just focus on being content. Do I have a place to live, food to eat, a family that loves me? Check, check, check. Everything else is gravy. And since I am no longer chasing happiness, every so often I am walking along the beach , may be in Santa Barbara or Maui, and there’s this sunset and a cool breeze and the thought creeps into my head, ” It is just fucking great to e alive.” And in that moment I am very happy and certainly content.
Have a great 4th !

In Memory of Two Great Lovers – Carlin and Russert

George Carlin died, Tim Russert’s term expired. That’s probably the way they’d like it expressed. Two men from very different world’s, Carlin cranky, reckless and very definitely anti-religion and Russert, the devout Catholic, polite, and very definitely blue collar. But they both shared in mastering the energy of the mature lover. Now for clarity, the mature lover is not someone who masters the art of sex and revels in carnal knowledge. Rather it is someone who has mastered the art of communication and connection. Russert and Carlin were such masters but they did it in distinctly different ways.
The mature lover has the capacity to connect with his audience by both communicating with clarity in a way that any listener can relate to. Carlin did it by meticulously mastering the English language. Now matter how cutting edge his schitck. Carlin was always clear about where he was going. No mater how acerbic his take on the world, you couldn’t help but laugh. Carlin managed to distill the inconsistencies of society, language and religion to such a basic essence that it was hard to posit a counter argument. Not that you’d want to because you were too busy laughing.
On the other hand, Russert mastered the Lover’s art of empathy. Russert had the reputation of being a relentless and tough interviewer but he did it with such a disarming manner that his targets actually reveled in the exchange. Russert gave great effort to preparation but he did not get lost in his questions. He listened, so that no matter how intrusive his questioning, it came directly out of the very words his subject had spoken. So no matter how contentious the exchange was it was never a debate but a dialogue.
The mature Lover lives by two cardinal rules:
It is difficult to dislike someone who makes you laugh and you naturally respect someone who confirms that they have heard what you said. Comics rarely stay relevant for long periods of time, someone else is always viewed as the next comic working o the cutting edge, but Carlin remained in high esteem across generations and amongst his peers. His longevity is a testament to his mastery of the first rule. Russert excelled at the second rule within the intersection of two of the more visible and ego driven forums on the planet – the media and American politics.
While they clearly would not agree on what the after life held for each of them, I am certain that they would easily embrace both their commonality and the legacy they each left behind.

The MDI Code of Honor - The First Tenet Commitment Before Ego

The Code of Honor was created by the men of what was then known as the Sterling Men’s Divisions. It was intended to reflect some very 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.



Back in the late 1990s some men from the Western Region (the Bay area around Sasn Francisco) created an ark which contained 15 different pieces of word. 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. Charlie Fleischheimer spearheaded that effort. 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 opprotunity 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.



First Tenet of the Code

Commitment Before Ego



Wood: Manzanita – A strong hearty tree that grows in some of the most barren environments. Where other things have difficulty surviving, Manzanitas continue to grow and branch outward. A commitment driven by a powerful context will flourish like the Manzanita tree.



Symbol: Coyote – In Native American mythology, the Coyote is the trickster, the clever one who often tricks himself with his own cleverness.



To be successful, a man must possess a strong and healthy ego. However, a man’s ego can consume him if he has not learned how to master it. Without a strong set of core values, I have often found myself drawn to doing what felt good wthout giving any thought to the ramifications. Any man living life without a clear sense of his commitment will find himself being led by whatever happens to be at hand in the moment (usually his feelings or his ego). His life is one of reaction rather than proaction.



Commitment before Ego demands two disciplines:



· To practice and possess a firm understanding and adherence to one’s purpose and commitment; and,

· To hold an iron mastery over one’s ego.



Many people equate commitment to making a pledge or promise to do something. Actually commitment is action. Commitment shows up not in what we say in the passion of a moment or even the things we do when spurred on by others or when things are going well. The benchmark of your commitment is evidenced by your actions when the underlying reasons behind your words seem challenged. When you no longer wish to be held to what you said. When there appears to be no reward for following through. When quitting looks like an attractive option. This is where the Ego has fertile ground to play its tricks.



There are many definitions and theories about the ego. Although Native Americans embody it in the form of a Coyote, it is more elusive than that. It is usually easier for others to see Ego governing our actions than it is for us. when I find myelf needing to defend or explain my actions, it is usually a good indction that my ego is engaged. rarely do you feel compelled to justify ctions driven by commitment becasue the actions speak for themselves. When I am operating out of commitment, I am more interested in doing than discussing.



This tenet is not Commitment over Ego. It is Commitment Before Ego. By that we mean let your commitment lead your ego rather than the other way around. The need to look good is Ego before commitment. The desire to do good is Commitment before ego.



There is nothing wrong with doing things because they feel good. I am a firm believer in the notion of “enlightened self interest”. I do good not because I am altruistic and aspire to be Ghandi. There is always something very definite in it for me. The key is to know what that pay off is so that I can keep my ego in check and be honest with myself about my motivations. Fortunately, the men around me will help me to find ways to feed my ego while adhering to a higher commitment than just my personal self interest.

The 75% Rule - The Excellence of Imperfection

I am pretty sure nothing in nature is really perfect. Okay maybe the egg. But other than the egg, everything has its flaws. And in truth, if you look at an egg really closely, especially under a microscope, you will see flaws and discoloration there as well. It is sort of like having this really gorgeous girlfriend. No matter how hot she seems at first blush, in time you will start to notice the little imperfections and they can actually really drive you to distraction because they start to stand out more and more once you get keyed into them. Blemishes just seem bigger against a pristine backdrop. Even a perfect game in baseball is not really perfect because it simply can not be replicated. In fact, no one has ever pitched two perfect games.

Yet people remain driven to achieve perfection. From a far, many of us admire the perfectionist. We think, “Oh what discipline!” “I wish I could be like that.” If you think about it though, I am not sure you really want to be that guy.

Nothing drove this home for me more than watching the U.S. Open this weekend. There was Tiger and there was Rocco Mediate. Everything with Tiger seemed to be chock full of drama. He was in pain, he was grimacing. He’d make a bad shot and you’d see it on his face. Then there was Rocco, living the dream and just happy to be there. He seemed to be just truly enjoying the moment. Now, I know the retort --- but Tiger is a legend, he will go down in history as the greatest golfer who ever lived. That’s nice, but the problem with history is you tend to be long dead and gone and not around to enjoy any of it. I just don’t get that Tiger is really enjoying how brilliant he is, he seems to be too busy striving for perfection.
Now, I am not advocating a life of sloth. Rocco Mediate is no slouch as a golfer. The guy has been around a long time, has earned many millions of dollars and he clearly works hard at what he does. I just don’t get that he feels he needs to give his all to his game at all costs. He strikes me as a guy who has a little perspective and balance in his life. I am of the mindset that in the long run that is the healthier approach to life.

The key is not always being at your best and continually giving 110%. Unless of course you are hell bent on living one of these brilliant and very short lived lives. Rather, it is in knowing just what your best looks like and knowing when you really need to turn it up. If you think about baseball, the really successful pitchers are not the ones throwing 100 miles an hour all the time. Instead, it is the guy like Greg Maddux with the really good command of his off speed stuff.

Possibly the best way to ensure you get where you are going in life and enjoy the trip is to adhere to the 75% Rule. Find the circumstance that calls for your A game; then really give it your all. Experience what its like to hit the wall and break through it. Take note of what part of you is being called upon to get there. It is not the same for everyone. For some, it is fighting through pain, for others, avoiding distractions, or maybe it is shedding guilt or doubt and those voices in your head. Whatever it is, there will be a moment. You need to understand and fully embrace that moment so that when necessary you can master it and yourself. Then file it somewhere in your memory bank and go enjoy your life.

For me, it has always been about being in the game. Playing hard, playing smart but not always winning. I like to call that the 75% Rule. Do just enough to keep the leaders within eyesight and pick your spot when you are going to really shine. Maybe it is this first week at a new job – after all first impressions can be everything, but that’s another blog. Maybe it is the one time you find yourself unexpectedly in the spotlight. It is in that moment that you can really make an impression because everyone around might have their guard down and only you know what you are really capable of.

I have found that winning can often feel hollow. After all, once you win, then what? You feel compelled to win again. After climbing the mountain, second place never seems good enough and everyone seems to be gunning for you. People tend to relate to you differently. It stirs up envy in them. And in a lot of ways people just don’t know how to relate to a champ as a person. They become larger than life and that I submit can be a lonely place.

But to be Rocco. On Tuesday morning after the Open, everyone was embracing Rocco. At most water coolers, he was what they were talking about. After all, Tiger was supposed to win. He was supposed to crush him. So every hole that passed where Rocco was still in the hunt was another nugget for his memory bank. I know many people say, “It sucks to lose.” And there is this notion that if you gave your best and finished second, it just means your best wasn’t good enough. But another way to look at it, if you embrace the 75% rule, is that your best was better than anyone could have ever expected. And that can make you a legend in your own right.

Dinner for 150

I'd like to put a face, or faces, to the group of men that have inspired me to write much of what shows up here. Mens' Division International (MDI) is a not-for-profit that spans all of North America. Right now it has very active circles of men in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, throughout New England, Atlanta, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, Los Angeles, San Diego and through the San Fransisco Bay Area. Teams of men are starting to pop up in Florida, Salt Lake City, Denver, Seattle and virtually any where two men just want to get together to support each other to win in their lives.

One of the great things about having men all over the map is every so often we get together to do a gut check on where we are personally and where as an organization we see ourselves going. We just had one of those soirees in New Jersey the weekend of June 6-8. Below is a link to a few photos that chronicle the feast we put on for 150 plus men along the banks of the Hudson River on Saturday night.



http://mrob.com/men/20080607-Spierer/

Four men rarely have chance to spend an evening together just being men. For 150 to do it with no set agenda is virtually unheard of. It was truely a night to remember.



For anyone who is interested in checking out what we in MDI do, go to www.mdionline.org or shoot me an e-mail at duxdeluxe@excite.com. Better yet, reigster for our upcoming event, the Legacy Discovey.





Legacy Discovery is based on the collective “wisdom of the Men,” including your personal experience. It is about being a man in relationship with other men and deepening your connection with the men in your life.



This will be a challenging, intimate and revealing experience, one that you will not forget. It is designed to put you in touch with what it is to be a man so that you can achieve your purpose in life and “become the man you have always wanted to be.”



· You will experience a powerful way of being based on mature masculinity

· You will increase your ability to connect with and trust other men.

· You will reveal to yourself what you are “really” committed to.

· You will discover your purpose in life.

· You will write your own mission statement.

· You will learn how to create an action plan for achieving your goals.

· You will experience the value of using the “wisdom” of a “circle of men.”

· You will celebrate and embrace who and how you have been in the past and will see that that no longer has to hold you back.

· You will connect with the source of your power.

· You will learn how to communicate what you mean more clearly and take ownership of your opinions.

· You will become more aware of people and experience them more honestly.

· You will develop a stronger sense of the real relationship you have or had with your “father.”

· You will confront some of the habits that impede your ability to create the results you want in your life.

· You will learn to accept yourself and your “foibles.”

· You will gain a new and more effective awareness of the role women play in your life.

· You will gain a deeper awareness of your relationship to money and the role it plays in your life





The next event is taking place outside of New Paltz, NY durng the weekend of June 21-23.
You can get a registration form by clicking here http://www.healthoutloud.com/ld.doc

Go to the Roar - Having a Healthy Relationship With Fear

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself — FDR।

That is it। If you think about it, fear only means something if you let it। Now I get that might seem trite but I am of the belief that usually what I think I am afraid of is not really it। There is something underneath, bubbling under the surface and it is usually something unknown that I can’t put a name or a face to। For me, fear manifested itself in just not knowing what was on the other side। For most of my life I was the guy that had to have the answer। I just had to know। And if I did not have a clear vision of how things would play out, I would be frozen into inaction। I would rather do nothing than risk having to take on the unexpected. I have come to embrace that that mindset is the equivilant of death.


There is a parable about gazelles and lions on the African Serengeti. Lions love to eat gazelles. Gazelles can easily outrun lions. A lion also hunts in packs and if not part of the kill that lion does not get to share in the feast. This of course poses a problem for the older lions who just don’t have the where-with-all to chase spry gazelles across the plains. How then do they survive? The older lions have devised a simple plan. The young lions chase the gazelles for a while. Eventually, they run them up to the high grass where an old lion is hiding. When the gazelle comes upon him, the lion let’s out a tremendous roar. In that moment, most gazelles freeze just long enough for the young lions behind to catch up and pounce on them for the kill. Those gazelles that do not break stride and instead run at the old lion get to live another day because the old lion is just not agile enough to catch them. The point is, to live you need to be prepared to run headlong into your fear.

Obviously there is a difference between being reckless and adventurous but now I firmly believe that there are few greater highs than being on the other side of something that at one time truely terrified me So one of the disciplines I have taken on is when making a decision I will always go in the direction that truely terrifies me. Taking on this attitude certainly helped me deal with having MS (multiple sclarosis). When first diagnosed, I had no idea where the disease would take my body. Even when I figured out how to cope with the symptoms, something new would pop up. I had an answer to the headcaches, my limbs would go numb. I’d figure out how to navigate my body and my bladder would go south on me. Every day would become an adventure. But traher than freeze, I committed to just getting out the door and making a run at the day.

These days in my mens’ circles I continually strive to fail. First becaue it is a safe place to do it. Since the world of MDI is an artificial environment there are no long term risks other than my tarnished ego. But more importantly, in failure there is an opportunity to learn. I can’t thnk of I time when I learned anything from doing anything right. Sure it felt good for a time but I tended not learn anything. But when I made a mistake, failed, or stepped into the unknown — the lessons just cascaded all over me.

So take a moment and think about something that truely terrifies you. Don’t think about why, the why is irrelevant. Instead make a commitment to take a direct run at that fear. However, don’t do it alone. Make sure someone has your back. Make sure someone has checked your parachute or knows your flight plan, so if things really go awry, they can reel you back in. Most of all just enjoy the ride.

Me and My Shadow - the other side of maturity

We all have a desire to embody one or more of the mature male archetypes: the efficiency of the warrior, the charisma of the lover, the wisdom of the magician, the generosity of the king. However, to get there we each need to take on our own demons. These tend to be embodied in the various immature archetypes, or the shadow sides of the matures.

I like to use a short hand to refer to these traits -- the immature side of the Warrior is the Bully; the Slacker is the immature Lover, the Trickster the immature incarnation of the Magician; and the Spoiled Brat as the embodiment of immature King energy. These “characters” are a short hand for various immature traits that have haunted us in our youth. No matter how “together” you perceive yourself to be right now or how happy you remember your childhood to have been, you had to take on and either compensate for, tame or overcome one or more of these “shadows”. I’d g so far as to say that those who have made the greatest impact in the world – in both a good and bad way-- probably had the most significant demons haunting them in their youth.

I know the connotation of immaturity carries a negative stigma. But if you think about it, these ways of being have served as our tools for survival. They tend to come to play when we feel threatened or our very existence is at stake. Let me explain.

First the type of immature behavior is not he same for everyone. There is usually a yin and yang to each immature archetype. They are polar opposites. Everyone may have a touch of both but usually one dominates over the other.

So let me lay these bad boys out and see what fits for you.

The Slacker (the immature Lover) shows up in the way we deal with emotions and can be distilled a little further into either the addict or the extremist. The addict is someone who needs something to deaden or distract him from what he is feeling. On the other hand, the extremist has trouble feeling anything and only feels alive only when he is overwhelmed by stimulation. You’ll often find extremists jumping out of airplanes or precipitating fights with their loved ones. Have you ever been amazed at how a couple can engage in this intense argument and be lovey-dovey a few minutes later? The intensity of the argument reminds them of the depths of their love. On the flip side, addiction is not limited to alcohol and drugs. It finds a safe haven in work or other fastidious obsessions.


For the Warrior, there is the immaturity of the Bully which comes to the fore when self esteem is on the line. Low self esteem triggers either the Sadist or Masochist. The Masochist is viewed as some one who derives joy from someone else’s pain but the pay off is in the sense of control over another. If I can belittle you, I must be alright. Conversely, the masochist will subject themselves to intense pain and sacrifice to prove that they are “worthy”. Why else would someone choose to participate in an iron man triathlon?
At work for the Trickster, the undeveloped Magician, in times when the responsibility of knowledge comes to the fore is either the liar or the innocent. Both manipulate others in essentially same way. One lies to mask his ignorance of the truth; the other feigns ignorance to mask his grasp of a truth he’d prefer to deny. Both do it for the same reason, they’d rather not be in a position to take a stand for what they actually believe. It was no surprise that for Germans in post-war Germany they either claimed ignorance of what was going on around them or pled that they were just following orders.

This brings us to the King. While the King typically emerges the latest in life because it requires us to harmonize the other archetypes first, its immature side usually emerges first in the form of the Spoiled Brat. If you think of young children they either fall into one of two categories: the little tyrant shouting out his needs, stamping his feet, angrily throwing away those things he rejects or the weakling, the quiet, shy, pale child that you are convinced will shatter if you so much as sneeze. For the first, parents try to placate the rage by running through every imaginable options, nothing is too much. For the later, parents over compensate by doting on the child and providing for their every need, literally spoon feeding them. Both versions of the Brat get their way, albeit in opposite ways, and survive to live another day.


As with everything I write here, this just glances along the tip of the iceberg. It is woefully simplistic and reflects my own belief system. It is hardly intended to be the gospel. It is stuff I picked up from reading Carl Jung, Robert Moore (the co-author of KWML), Alfred Adler, and a whole host of others and it is sprinkled with the experiences of spending weeks on the road with tour buses full of kids – no parents in sight to muddy the waters – and of course my own journey coming to terms with my dysfunctional family. I am a firm believer that we all come from dysfunctional families – which in turn makes all families normal. As always, I welcome your thought.

Choosing the best man for the job.

The distinction between Warrior Leadership and King Leadership


To appreciate the differences in the ways of being embodied by each of the mature archetypes -- the King, Warrior, Magician and Lover – it helps to look at how they operate in a given situation. For example how does a Warrior lead and how is that leadership different from that of a man harnessing King energy?

It is my belief that many men master Warrior leadership pretty early on in life. In my men’s organization (MDI) we put new men through an eight week program that lets them hone the skills necessary to achieve short-term tasks. Jargon such as “honoring your commitment”, “being a team of one” “completing the job at all costs” and “quitting is not an option” can be viewed as the mantras of the Warrior. A Warrior operating from his strength is committed to achieving success at all costs. He puts aside his own emotion and any and all distractions so that he can attain that single task that he has been charged with.

In battle it is the Sergeant charged with leading his men to take the hill.
In sport it is the quarterback charged with leading his team into the end zone.
For a salesman it is making the next sale.
For me, as a lawyer, when I worked for a law firm, it was my job to win my case, by any means necessary.


In each instance the goal was specific, the task was within reach and when you attained it you were done. No questions asked, you did your job and waited for the opportunity to take the next hill, win your next case, score your next touchdown, make the next sale (or in MDI enroll your next men). In a lot of respects the leadership of the Warrior is phenomenally satisfying. It is easy to measure success and failure. There is after all no better feeling than winning.

However, Warriors have rarely succeeded in building anything that lasts over time. They have rarely been effective in creating and sustaining cultures, building companies or creating sports dynasties. It is well accepted that very few superstar athletes make good managers or coaches, let alone general managers charged with sustaining success year after year (while there are always exceptions, Knicks fans just need to look to Isiah Thomas.) In my experience, really gifted trial lawyers are horrible as managing partners in a law firm or as general counsel of a major company. There are just a different skills sets needed for effective short term and long-term leadership.

Which brings us to the leadership of the King. Where the Warrior thrives in chaos, the King is successful when he brings order to that chaos. The leader King is the field general viewing the battle as it unfolds from a hill in the rear. He looks not at the immediate battle but where the battle is flowing. Losing the battle in order to win the war is a concept mature Kings easily embrace. It is the foresight to realize that short-term sacrifice is often a key component of long-term success. For example a GM or manager who plays a rookie knowing it might cost the team a game but in the end will give the young player valuable playing experience. Savvy business owners will often refer potential customers to a competitor if they thnk that competitor might better serve the s=customers needs. They do it in the belief that the trust established will come back ten fold ove ime even f hey lost out on the immediate job. Now that I am an attorney working solely for a major corporation, I care less about winning and being right and focus more on what is in the best interests of the company as a whole. Often it means agreeing to settle a case even though I know victory can be easily attained.

I want to be clear that I am not making a judgment that one form of leadership is better than another. However, it is important to recognize which type of leadership is needed to acheive a particulat goal and to make sure that the man chosen to lead the project is harnessing the proper energy. For example, I am not sure that I would want a King leading a distinct fund raising project or an enrollment drive. In my mind, he may be thinking too many steps ahead to successfully lead his men to their short-term goal. Conversely, I would not want a Warrior driving my men to create an organization or lead a long-term project because he will drive the men to exhaustion and burnout.

In short, each man is gifted with a distinct tool set and it is a mistake we often make to think that success in one arena is easily transferred into another. So take the time to ask the hard questions about what is needed to succeed at a particular challenge and then do an honest exploration of who the best man is to do that job.

Introduction to the Male Archetypes - the sign post to who we are as men.

A lot of what I will write about here is tied to the concept of male archetypes, those innate aspects of men that just keep popping up over and over again. It is something that Carl Jung first touched upon as certain personality traits that imbedded within what he called the "collective unconscious." They are traits that are just there and tend to bubble to the surface for a particular person over and over again.

The concept of an archetype is akin to electricity. You don’t fully know how it works but you know that when you flick a light switch the light will go on. Similarly there is distinct masculine behavior that will get tapped into in a particular set of circumstances. This “default” behavior, for want of a better term is referred to as masculine archetypes. Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette have done some ground breaking work in identifying four primary masculine archetypes that show up in literature and mythology thought the ages: the King, Warrior, Magician and Lover. For a more in depth, albeit slightly dryer examination of all this I highly recommend their book, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine

So here is my discertation on Archetypes 101

Each archetype has both
• a mature (or light) side, which is creative and generative and looks to strengthen the broader community and fulfill a higher purpose, and
• an immature (or dark/shadow) side, which is potentially destructive and focuses more on self preservation and satisfying the ego

We usually access the immature side of the archetypes when confronted with a sudden set of circumstances that we perceive to be life or ego threatening. Not surprisingly this comes up time and time again in childhood as young boys struggle to figure out how their bodies and ego will survive in a seemingly hostile world.

However, for most people we get to a place where survival is no longer an issue, or at least not a daily refrain. At that point, when life is good, we have the time to reflect on where we fit in the world and where we want to fit in. In other words we start to question our legacy and purpose. At these time we typically access the mature side of the archetypes


LOVER (and SLACKER)

The Lover feels.
• He savors feeling and embraces all the sensations and emotions of life, good or bad, joyful or painful
• He is at one with life because he lives fully in the moment with all his feelings
• His connection to the world is through his feelings and the passion that radiates out of him. He lives without boundaries and is not concerned with protocol or order.
• He understands that only by opening to the depth of his emotional experience can he become fully ALIVE and this is his purpose.
• He can access each of the five emotions: Joy, Fear, Sadness, Anger, and Shame and can empathize with them without drowning in any one of them.
• His ego is strong and healthy. It allows him to carry forth ideals and inspire others with his passion to strive to pursue those ideals.
• He can easily distill his personal experience into a universal concept.

The Slacker is the shadow of the Lover
• He expresses himself in each of us as the extremist or the glutton and the addict.
• The addict is enslaved by sensation and driven to excess to mask his pain.
• His emotions are so raw he needs something to dilute them because he rejects the depth of his true emotion.
• The extremist is actually numb to emotion and only feels alive when he’s overwhelmed by stimulation, not necessarily chemical so he may recklessly induce fear to precipitate an argument to force him to feel.

WARRIOR (and BULLY)

The Warrior acts.
• He has healthy self esteem and can easily see and honor the strength of others
• He is energetic, decisive, courageous, enduring, and loyal to some greater good beyond mere personal reward or acclaim.
• He is committed to something greater than himself. He will fight the good fight to make the world a better and more fulfilling place for this and future generations
• For a warrior to be in his power he must embrace a way of life and a specific spiritual path.
• The warrior embodies selfless service. His joy comes from losing himself in giving. A better world is his only need and greatest reward. He becomes what he gives; pure devotion to a higher purpose.
• The mantra of the warrior is “it is not about me.” He has no time for the stories of the past and no desire to place blame. He stands fully accountable for his every action.
• He accepts that he controls nothing but his own emotions.


The Bully is the shadow of the Warrior

The Bully is challenged by a sense of low self esteem and a feeling of not being in control of his life.
• He is either the Sadist some one who derives joy from someone else’s pain – to punctuate his illusion of superiority over others; or the masochist, someone who subjects himself to pain to prove to himself that he is truly “worthy” of power, status and preferment.
• He is the unhealed child; the wounded boy who fears and hates his perceived inner weakness. He is the energy of the Warrior turned inward against himself.
• He exudes self-judgment, self-hatred and self-punishment.
• He is the outer manifestation of a man’s unforgiving inner shame of self.




MAGICIAN (and TRICKSTER)

The Magician seeks.
• He has a healthy relationship with knowledge and the responsibilities it brings.
• He is the mystic and the visionary.
• He is the master of discernment, the great distiller.
• His gift is that of insight and intuition.
• Where the Lover feels and the Warrior acts, the Magician simply, yet profoundly “knows” and “is.”
• The Magician sees clearly into the depths and darkness of other men’s souls because he has done so within his own. He is fully cognizant of his own dark side.
• The Magician easily appreciates all that he doesn’t know and knows how to further a dialogue with the right question rather than posing the “answer”.

The Trickster is the shadow of the Magician

To the trickster knowledge equals power or responsibility
• He is either the liar or the innocent.
o The liar lies to mask his ignorance of the truth
o To shield himself from the responsibility of owning what he says or believes, he uses phrases like, “this is the way it has always been done” or “I was just following orders”.
o The innocent feigns ignorance to mask his grasp of truths he prefers to deny.
o He will quickly say “I don’t know, what do you think?” to avoid the responsibility of making hi own decision.



KING (and SPOILED BRAT)

The King Gives

He holds the energy of the mature and masterful man, the fully actualized human being
• He exudes an inner authority, bringing order to the world, creating and enforcing the code men choose to live by, and establishing guideposts within which men can earn and honor rank.
• He stands as an ego-less mirror that reflects for other men the possibilities of their own greatness, radiating a peace and stability that allows for growth.
• In the face of chaos and struggle, his decisions are clear, sharp and concise
• To fully realize the true energy of a King, he must master or at least be able to recognize all the qualities of the other mature archetypes that of an accomplished warrior, an integrated magician and a great lover.
• The King holds a healthy relationship with abundance. He doesn’t act out of a sense of obligation but from a place of long tem vision. He is willing to sacrifice in the short term to prosper in the long term.

The Spoiled Brat is the shadow of the King
• He brings chaos to the order of the community be either demanding more than he needs (the tyrant) or failing to shoulder his responsibility (the weakling)
• He is the little tyrant shouting out his needs, stamping his feet, angrily throwing away those things he rejects – he has an unhealthy relationship with abundance in that he seeks to horde all he can.
• Or, he is the weakling, the quiet, shy, pale child that you are convinced will shatter if you so much as sneeze – he has an unhealthy relationship with abundance in that he equates taking anything with taking on obligation to return the favor.

The Tao of Dino – Mastering the Art of Being the Man Behind the “Guy”.

Last entry I wrote about the importance of getting yourself into a Rat Pack, a group of men outside your normal circle that allows you to personally benefit from the diversity of the group. I also cautioned about being too quick to be the Pack’s Sinatra. Here’s my thinking:

Inevitably any time men form any entity there is this initial alpha male impulse to struggle for the seat at the head of the table. Avoid getting sucked into that black hole. I am not saying don’t aspire to be a leader. I am just cautioning against being the publicly acknowledged leader. Using the Rat Pack analogy helps here. If you think about it, it was always Sinatra and the Rat Pack. And while Frank’s career and ego certainly benefited from his holding the mantle of the “Man,” his personal life suffered. His relationships were tabloid fodder and every thing he did and said seemed to become a lightening rod for some reaction from someone, somewhere. His kids suffered from being caught in the glow of his spotlight to the point of being regular targets for wannabe kidnappers. But through all this there was another member of the Rat Pack who was inarguably successful in his own right, Dean Martin. For a few years, along with Jerry Lewis, he held the title of top box office draw in the movies. He had a ridiculously long running TV show driven by his public persona of the hard drinking womanizer. But his personal life he was not trapped by his public persona. Not many people know about his three marriages and seven kids and rumor has it the guy was home for dinner with the family almost every night.

Politically, history is rife with shadow dictators. The confidantes who had the ear of a president or dictator but usually avoided the fall out when the masses decided they had had enough. During the first term of the Bush administration, Dick Cheney got a free pass in his role of puppeteer until the media finally woke up. And of course if you turn to reality TV you can get a weekly lesson in the pitfalls of being pegged as the leader by watching Survivor. As soon as Jeff Probst outs the leader of the tribe it is just a matter of time before the rest of the tribe is scheming to get them booted off the “Island”.

So what’s an alpha male to do? Those who know me, know that I have been thrust into leadership roles quite often. They also know how much I hate it. Just to be clear, I don’t hate being a leader, I just hating being acknowledged as a leader. If that doesn’t make sense, let me explain. When I have been clearly recognized as the man in charge, I have come up against four reactions.

That of the Slacker – who thinks, “I don’t need to worry about anything, Spierer will do it”. And they just sit back and gladly ride my coattails,

The Spoiled Brat – who no matter what I suggest, takes a stand against it solely because it was not their idea.

The Bully – who will whisper in my ear and try to curry favor with me in the hopes that I will do their dirty work.

The Trickster – who will be forever scheming to undermine my goals because they want my job.

My experience has been that getting anything done when I occupy the title of “the Man” is a struggle. When I really get to accomplish things and have some influence though is after I step down. Then, when I speak everyone seems to listen. Things I said just a month earlier suddenly make sense and seem totally plausible. People just develop a different listening for me.

So there are two take aways from this. Now, when I am actually “in charge” I try to attain some marginal success in the job and then get out as quickly a possible. It is important to earn the cache of “been there done that” but it is even more important to take on the mantle of beloved elder before the glow of that success fades. After all, everyone is always looking for flaws in their leaders, not so with the man behind the curtain and definitely not with the beloved old patriarch.

The other thing I try to do is utilize the discipline of leading from the back of the room, even if I am the man in charge. By that, I mean I let someone else be my mouthpiece. I let someone else maintain the order in the room and I let some else garner the credit for a job well done. It ensures I sleep better at night and makes me less prone to getting picked off by a sniper.

Join A Rat Pack, Just Don't Be Sinatra

Since this is the first submission to the blog after my introduction. There is a part of me that wants to spoon out some cutting-edge concept that will make you step back and go “Wow! This son of a bitch is brilliant.” So I am going to do just the opposite. In part because I like patting myself on the back for not giving in to my ego but more because the subject of this blog is the one thing that will ensure that everything that comes afterwards will actually serve you.
On its face, the concept of ensuring that you have a strong circle of men in your life might seem basic and mundane. However, it is the nature and make up of that circle that is critical. Notice that I did not say get a strong circle of friends. I am not talking about friends and I am not talking about joining a support group. I am talking about stepping into a circle of men with whom you seem to have nothing in common but who you are confident you can trust to both watch your back and tell you all the things you really rather not hear.

If you think about it, most of your friends won’t really call you on your shit. If they do, they are opening the door for you to be honest with them. Most long term friendships have too much time invested to willingly risk the relationship at that level. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen but it is rare. The other problem is your friends probably share your interests and have a certain emotional investment in the dynamics of your life and shared relationship. So often times what you hear is really more about what is being triggered for them by the whole experience. You need to hear from a man who has nothing invested in your problem.

So why not a support group? First off, just the phrase makes me cringe. While support groups might be a great place to feel like you are not alone and get some honest feedback and an occasional slap in the face, rarely will the other members be willing to go out on a limb for you. And again if they do, it is because in saving you they are trying to save themselves. If anything, the relationship amongst the members is usually just one of talking rather than doing and the commitment is more to the process than the individual.

So, why a Rat Pack? The image of hanging around Vegas, smoking cigarettes and chasing after chorus girls is seductive but what allowed the “Rat Pack” to transcend the image of being the embodiment of the good life was in their diversity. Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop. A New Jersey crooner with ties to the mob, a black man who been street dancing since he was two, a Midwestern son of immigrants, a WASP and a Jew. On paper their bond didn’t make sense but their friendship was a brotherhood built on common experiences, not common religion, race or ethnicity.

A cousin of mine, an expert in group behavior, told me about a group of men he knew in Philadelphia who played basketball on the same court every Saturday for years. They included a brain surgeon, a handyman, a school teacher, a former professional ball player, and a businessman. Playing together was so important to them that some were known to have flown across a continent in order to make the game, even if it meant flying back the next day. I can relate because I had the same dynamic with a bunch of guys I played football with for years in Central Park on Sunday mornings. I was so committed to that game that I’d show up in the rain or with a killer hang over (often times heaving between downs). It was such a “regular” part of my week that when I was getting ready to move to Colorado I had second thoughts because I thought, “what about my Sunday game?” My real concern wasn’t about missing a ear of playing but wondering if it would be the same when I came back. Why? Well whether we like to acknowledge it or not, men are creatures of habit and we find comfort in the familiarity of ritual. For those men in Philly and me those weekly games became a sacred ritual. From the grunts of recognition to the post game slap on the back or for the deeply committed, post-game beer, it did not matter that for some of these men, I knew nothing more about them than their last name. (And for the record, after a year hiatus, I came back to New York. I got back into the games and was welcomed back but strangely the year off made it feel different and I didn’t feel as committed.

There is some truth to the old Cheers theme song about wanting to go somewhere “where everybody knows your name.” But as I got older, I realized that I needed more than the comfort of being “known” by name. I wanted to get to know me. To do that I needed to find an environment where men weren’t interested in either placating me or molding me into their image. I needed to find a bunch of men who on paper I had nothing in common with.
So right about now you might be asking why would I want to hang out with men with whom I have no shared interests? Well for me, I have found the joy in life not to be in striving to fit into someone else’s image of perfection. The joy is in marching to the rhythm of my own song. If it is mine, no one else can really tell me that I’ve got it all wrong. They may make suggestions on some of the moves but it is uniquely mine. The beauty of diversity in a men’s circle is if I’ve been dancing the two-step my whole life I might get smitten by watching someone else bump and grind. If someone else was trying to teach me the steps I might get self conscious and turn them off but in watching, I might be inspired to try. Which brings us back to the Rat Pack analogy. Sammy, Frank, Dean, Peter and Joey all were dancing to different rhythms but they let themselves dabble in each other’s world.

So why not be Sinatra? Well that’s the next blog. I just think that you never want to be the “guy”. I just never got the payoff in that. Anyone who ever watched the movie Animal House quickly came to appreciate that the guys having all the fun were not the tight assed Deltas striving to emulate the all-american male and certainly not Greg Marmalard, the president of the student body, but those guys at the end of the couch at the frat party who no one really expected anything out of. That is were the infinite possibility lies.

An introduction to my life's journey and why here and why now

In the last few years, I have spent a lot of time with men. All voluntary. It is not from time spent in jail or the military. I’m not a pro athlete and I am not gay. I have just come to embrace the notion that the best way to get a handle on who I am and what I want is to put myself in a circle with other men, the vast majority of whom are total strangers and who on the surface seem to have no shared interests with me.

Time and again, standing in such circles with men who I have come to refer to as “my boys” has allowed certain truths to bubble to the surface and resonate with me. I’d like to share some of those truths here. I have found that when I am not concerned with impressing anyone or looking good, and when I have no need to be right, I am more receptive to hearing and considering these truths and incorporating some of them into my life. The great thing about universal truth is it stands up fairly well against trendy fads and newly discovered secrets to happiness and success. The downside is that sometimes it is so blatantly obvious that I turn a blind eye to it. Kind of like that curb I step over every day on my way to work until I get distracted in the moment and trip and fall on my face.

So if these truths are so universal, are they guaranteed to work for everyone? Who knows? Will they work for you? They might, but that is not the thing. Think of the stuff that shows up here as being like tofu. Not everyone likes it, but eating a lot of it can’t hurt you a lick. And if truth be told, the more you eat, the healthier you are likely to be. Regardless of how you feel about the notion of considering someone else’s advice or embracing the collective wisdom of men, I can tell you that stepping into that process will challenge the way you have chosen to look at the world and your place in it. I know this because standing in a circle of men prepared me for a rather unexpected kick in the head.

Fourteen years ago I decided to go off for a weekend called the Sterling Men’s Weekend with a hundred or so men who I did not know a thing about. At the time it just seemed like a good idea. I was at the top of my game as a litigation attorney at one of the most prestigious law firms in America. I was well paid and although I worked hard, I found time to dabble in some creative writing and other things. In fact, the local ABC affiliate had featured me in a series they broadcast on avoiding professional burnout. Two of my plays had recently been produced Off-Broadway and a screenplay I co-written was garnering some interest in Hollywood. I owned a small weekly newspaper called Actors Resources that provided practical tips and casting notices for aspiring actors and I sat on the boards of a few not-for-profits dedicated to doing good in the world. A few years earlier I had provided counseling to a group of Long Island moms as they developed and grew Mother’s Voices into a national AIDS awareness organization that became the first such group to meet with President Clinton at the White House. I was in my fifth year of marriage to a wonderful woman, a professional in her own right. She kept things fresh by doing things like surprising me for my birthday with a live roast on cable TV and getting me backstage at the Democratic Convention where I got to hang out with the Secret Service guys and a slew of celebrities. We lived in a huge loft in Chelsea, knew lots of people and periodically threw huge parties. By any measure, life was good.


In truth though, something was missing. I had come to live a life bigger than myself and had gotten caught up in my own press. I was buying into my own bullshit and many of my friendships were tenuous at best. So when I ran into an actor, who had been in one of my plays and was now back to waiting tables, and he suggested to me that I do this thing that he described as something akin to “open heart surgery without the anesthesia,” the competitive, adventurous side of me bit. It was a good thing.

Fast forward four years. I am out in Boulder, Colorado participating in the annual National Institute of Trial Advocacy two-week intensive course -- a boot camp for trial lawyers. I was in my element. Playing lawyer during the day and drinking at night. On the weekends I went rock climbing in Rocky Mountain National Park and white water rafting on the Arkansas River. Towards the end of the two weeks, my body started to feel a little funky. I was getting weird stomach cramps and spells of vertigo. I initially put it off to too much tequila and stopped drinking. But things got worse. Within a week I had lost all feeling in my right leg and arm. I couldn’t stand and I was having excruciating headaches. It took a while for the doctors to figure out what was going on but I was eventually diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. MS is a neurological disease for which there is no cure. For most people it slowly strips away their nervous system wrecking havoc on their body. Things I took for granted like walking and going to the bathroom became adventures.

It wasn’t long before I was forced to re-examine a lot of what I had taken for granted. Jumping out of airplanes and white water rafting down Class V rivers didn’t seem like terribly rational endeavors to someone who was finding it a challenge to walk down the steps. I reluctantly gave up being an extremist and traded in the rush of putting myself at physical risk for the much more uncomfortable environment of getting to know myself and actually making an effort to get to know others. Of course the first reaction most people have when confronted by a challenge is to reject what you know. So, I began to move away from the concept of man as an emotionally challenged Neanderthal that had been drummed into my head at my Men’s Weekend and began to undertake a search to connect to my heart and discover my purpose. I dabbled a bit with some courses offered by Landmark Education and had a wonderful time playing their game but found that both the co-ed environment and emphasis on authenticity seemed strangely inauthentic to me and kept me from getting to the core of who I was. I participated in the New Warrior Adventure Weekend offered by the Mankind Project and while I was humbled by the effective ability of those men to cleanly delve into the wounds men had carried with them all their lives, I was a little taken aback to discover I wasn’t hurting and I wasn’t looking to heal anything. I also felt uneasy with how uneasy they seemed to feel about having a good testosterone laden fight every now and then. So I went back to my men and decided to begin listening a little bit differently to what they had been telling me.

Together we began to create our own organization, Men’s Divisions International. It borrowed a little bit from every discipline we had each been exposed to and wasn’t wedded to any one way of being or thinking. The organization was driven by a simple construct: provide men the inspiration and support to win in their lives. With some of these men, I have helped create a weekend experience for men called the Legacy Discovery and have led men attending many such weekends throughout North America. I have witnessed men embracing who they are; celebrating how they got there; and mapping out a future that will ensure that they leave behind a powerful and positive legacy. The process is not always pretty but they all leave with a smile and sense of peace that I just don’t think is as readily attainable elsewhere. I have come to believe that truly knowing oneself is a wonderful and empowering experience. That means really embracing what it is that you are passionate about. And really taking ownership of what it is that makes you great – for most men no small task-- as well as all not shying away from or ignoring those warts you’d prefer to gloss over. My hope is that this website will give you some insight into how to do all that.

A lot of what you read here may seem vaguely familiar. That is because good advice tends to stand the test of time. It becomes part and parcel of our culture. So why regurgitate it here? Throughout history mankind has transferred essential truths through story telling. Traditionally, wise men shared their knowledge through assemblies and through discussions of essential truths and in the moment those words and ideas were subject to challenge and confirmation by the broader circle. Today, the mass media is the principal source of those stories which teach us about our culture. Unfortunately, the stories as told obscure some very basic truths and fail to provide any forum for challenge or dialogue. When there is debate it often comes down to who can scream the loudest or with the most venom. As a result the concept of what it takes to be a man is relayed through images distorted in the service of fantasy that offers a shorthand for what it takes to overcome the challenges in life and simplifies the struggles involved, giving us a feeling of immediate enjoyment, but leaving little of lasting value.

In putting together this blog, my hope is to lay out thoughts about what it means to be a man in a way that you may have never really considered before. Some of what I have put out might make you nervous, even fearful. You might get pissed off at the way some ideas are presented. I hope so because I’d like to shake you out of your slumber as I was shaken myself. My purpose is to get you off the treadmill of life as you know it and to give you a taste of what it means to play in a bigger and cleaner game.

I’d like to take those notions of what you have come to accept as the definitions and burdens of manhood, bring them front and center and whack you upside the head with them. The notion that, “all men were created equal” is a laudatory thought but in truth that is not reality. We are not one size fits all. Some of us are macho, some are sensitive, and some are little bit of both. I don’t necessarily believe that you can learn to transition from one to another by flipping a switch or following some pre-determined regimen. For that reason I urge that you avoid doing something simply because you read it here. Do what makes sense to you. Not in your head but in your gut. And if you choose not to follow any of the advice that shows up here, you owe it to yourself to understand why. Simply, come to know yourself and the reasons for your choices.


So right about now, you are probably thinking, do I really need to read someone else's theory on how to tie my shoe? Only if you keep tripping over your own shoelaces. How many times do you pass the sign that says “Wet Paint” and find yourself touching it just to make sure?

Maybe you’re thinking, “My life is just fine. I don’t need fixing.” I am not looking to fix anybody. If anything I am looking to offer men a chance to celebrate in their success and sanity – even if they have trouble considering themselves successful or sane -- rather than shirking from that. I spent a long time feeling guilty about being happy and uneasy about being successful. There really is a way to dance without taunting. I’d like to share some of those dance steps.