Unhidden
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I believe the content of this work can change your life. It has significantly altered mine. Furthermore, I have used these techniques with more than 10,000 students and coaching clients who wanted to uplevel all aspects of their lives. In this book, I promise to show you a path to better understand yourself, the world you live in, what’s happening with men and women, and how to be a good man in today’s society.
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HOW THIS BOOK IS WRITTEN
In the first section, CONFRONT, I will identify the problems I see with how men are acting in our modern society. I will highlight issues that are affecting you, your relationship to yourself, to women, and to the world at large.
Section two INVESTIGATES these issues in a deeper way and offers changes to help you understand the challenges you face on a new level. It discusses your relationship to emotions and to what women want, helping you to see who you truly are and the impact you have in the world.
Section three creates ways to PRACTICE being a good man in today’s society. It speaks to building your self-esteem, learning to pay quality attention to women, and finding your own relationship to integrity.
Section four INTEGRATES the previous sections and creates a solid foundation for the next steps of your journey.
We then have a special section for those who are confused by men and want to understand them. In my coaching career, I’ve heard the same five questions over and over again by confused lovers of men. This section consists of a series of essays giving straight answers to these questions.
The final section includes RESOURCES for you—and those who love you—on how to relate better. It also includes additional ways to go deep into the work of becoming unHIDDEN.
CONFRONT
Human beings are socialized to move from day to day, task to task, with blinders on. Determined to get the maximum result with the least amount of effort, we become experts at creating routines and habits to check items off our to-do list so we can snuggle up with our pleasures at night. The benefit of this process is that we can minimize the amount of brain power required to achieve our goals. The negative aspect is that we often do not see the world around us, as our habits keep us in our quite comfortable status quo.
This section is about removing those blinders and opening your eyes to aspects of the world you may not have seen yet. The goal is to inspire you to turn and look at how to optimize all aspects of your lives. Although some of the details may be challenging to take in—to confront, I believe that living in reality will enable you to move towards your unHIDDEN life.
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HOW TO SPEND $100,000 TO AVOID INTIMACY
My client, Libby, is a high-end New York City escort. She is a powerful woman who has no shame about her profession and the ways she shares her erotic gifts with the world. She’s also an English Literature PhD student at an ivy league college who is finalizing her dissertation. Libby loves her work, views herself as a healer, and helps people (mostly men, some couples, a very rare woman) learn to embrace their sexuality. She charges $800 to $1200/hour, depending on the service, totaling more than $600,000 per year. In other words, she’s making a lot more money than myself and every other coach or teacher I know.
To say that Libby is one of my more dynamic and interesting clients would be an understatement. In our sessions, she tells me story after story about her clients, their issues, and how she works with them. In my view, she is having an overwhelmingly positive impact on the people she touches and their worlds. About six months into our work together, Libby tells me something fascinating:
The crazy thing about my clients, these guys, is the things they’re doing with me, the kinky things, they would MUCH rather be doing them with their wives.
I am surprised as I compare Libby to my mental image of her clients’ wives. “Really?” I ask, “they wouldn’t rather have you? Um, your face, your body ... your skills?”
“No,” she responds with absolute certainty. “They would rather be doing these things with the women they love. But, because they can’t even START a conversation with their wives about their true desires, let alone ask them to participate, they hire me.”
My financial brain quickly does the math. If her clients are doing weekly one- to two-hour sessions ($2000 including tip) multiplied by three months, they would be paying her approximately $25,000 per quarter or close to $100,000 per year because they can’t share with their wives the details of their sexual desires. That’s quite an expensive secret. While this may seem like an extreme case, this kind of living HIDDEN exists in 95 percent of all relationships I’ve witnessed in my career.
We live in a world where we are coerced to live a hidden life. The danger of revealing who we actually are, our desires, our true dreams, is met often with disapproval and shame. While expenses for Libby’s customers may run upwards of $100,000 per year, the cost is much more significant than money in terms of personal intimacy and connection to other people. Still, this example clearly illuminates the hefty financial price tag of choosing to hide our deepest truth and desire.
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IT’S A TOUGH TIME TO BE A MAN
The World is changing and Men are Confused
Historians state that the patriarchy started over 6000 years ago somewhere between 3500 and 4000 BCE. From that point forward, men were in society’s power position and considered more important and valuable than women. In 1848, 300 women (and men) signed the Declaration of Sentiments, a plea to end discrimination against women in all spheres of society, signaling the start of the women's suffrage movement. Seventy years later, the United States ratified the 19th amendment, giving women the right the vote.
Forty years later, the United States started to take more overt steps, with changes to the educational system creating programs specifically designed to help young girls. While I believe this was the correct thing to do, the same governmental agencies did not create complementary programs for boys and young men. In her book The War against Boys, Christina Hoff Sommer presents the argument that overt shifts for girls have created an unequal balance and have left boys feeling disenfranchised, citing specific changes in education: shorter or no recesses, fewer math classes, increase in language requirements, and the creation of speciality programs for girls to prosper in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). In Man Interrupted, researchers Zimbardo and Coulombe state that “academics are now more of a female pursuit. Girls are outperforming boys at every level, from primary school through university.” The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) reports total graduate school enrollment is 57.5 percent women and 42.5 percent men. In the 1970s, these statistics were exactly reversed, with men holding the 58 percent majority.
This lack of attention to balance has created an education chasm for boys and young men who are suffering from a lack of acumen in many skills that are needed in the 21st century, including empathy, communication, and emotional availability. Boys are falling behind girls across the board academically but they are also shrinking the gender pay gap. In 2013, the Pew Research group reports women in the 1980s were paid 64 percent of similar men’s wages. Currently, millennial women (ages 25-33) were at 93 percent compared to men, a significant increase in just 30 years.
These changing times have left men confused about their role in today’s society. In the past, men were the family breadwinners and had control of the economic power in the relationship. Women depended on men to afford their lifestyle, secure a home loan, buy a car, and support children. As a result of these dynamic changes, women have new choices in the form of their relationships and are able to make their own financial decisions and not depend on their male counterpoints. Men who were bred to be that white knight riding in to save the day now realize that the maiden has gone off shopping with her girlfriends using her own credit cards.
Recently, Michael Ian Black wrote this in an opinion piece for the New York Times:
If you want to emasculate a guy friend, when you’re at a restaurant, ask him everything that he’s g
oing to order, and then when the waitress comes … order for him. It’s funny because it shouldn’t be that easy to rob a man of his masculinity—but it is.
While this example may seem frivolous, in my experience it relates to a lot of experiences people are having today. Men historically have known the role of wearing the pants in the family and, in our new world, this is not a given. For the first time in the United States’ history, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that there are more single Americans than people who are married. The ones without a ring on it (to quote Beyoncé) are now are 50.2 percent, compared to just 22 percent in the 1950s.
In his book Going Solo, Eric Klingberg says, “It’s becoming legitimate and viable to be single for a long period of time,” People in their 20s and 30s are spending these years developing themselves, personally and economically, rather than blindly looking for marriage and having kids. In another Pew Research report, the average age for people to get married has risen from 23 (1960) to 29 (2011) for men and 20 to 26 for women. We’ve seen parents delaying having children to later in life, altering the dynamics of previous generations.
Bottom line: the world is changing and men are confused. Women, too.
A Challenging Time to Be a Man
I could go on with statistics, concepts, and evidentiary proof that things are messy out there. However, this is not a research-based book, but instead a pragmatic guide for men to live unHIDDEN in the world. If you want more statistics (and to have your heart broken), read Man Interrupted, Hanna Rosin's The End of Men, or Jack Myers’ The Future of Men.
My empirical experience after twenty years’ experience of coaching both men and women is that there are many frustrated, unhappy, and dissatisfied people out there. From the woman’s side, I often hear, “Men are acting more like boys.” From the man’s side, I hear, “Women are acting more like men.” The chasm between the genders is exponentially widening, with no sign of shrinking or slowing down.
Our new methods of romance impacts this chasm. Tinder’s ability of swipe-left/swipe-right has gamified the dating process. Before the smartphone, it was challenging to find a large pool of possible romance and sex partners, but this free app has created a plethora of options. If his coffee date doesn’t work out, a man can instantly slip out his phone, launch the app, and see the available players currently in his area.
In such a moment, a man can avoid his emotions, as zero downtime exists in which to feel the sensations of the unsuccessful date or to confront the rejection. He can just gloss over it, saying, “The night is young! Let’s see what’s out there!” DMR business statistics states there are currently 10 million daily users of Tinder, producing 26 millions matches every day. The world is seeing a greater quantity in interactions but a significant decrease in quality.
Women also complain men are not willing to stay and navigate through the first challenges of a young relationship. The moment things gets rocky, men will quickly exit the relationship, often ghosting (defined as: ending a connection/relationship without communication) and go back to the hunt. I also tie this pattern to the plethora of options in today’s electronic dating world.
There has also been the nuclear impact known as the Weinstein effect which sparked the #MeToo movement. I am 100 percent behind this movement; I believe it to be important for women finally to have a platform to speak their truth. Men do not know how women have been objectified, threatened, abused, and even killed throughout the generations. It is important to allow the stories that were never spoken to now be told. I believe it’s progress that many powerful men have been removed or left their positions due to accusations. However, the effect on men has been significant. Recently, I saw a this in a Facebook post:
Him: I’ve never felt this scared to be a man.
Her: I’ve never felt this safe to be a woman.
Three of my sex-educator peers have recently been called out for their past inappropriate behavior and lost their entire careers after their 20-30 years of being in the business. I will admit there are days when I fear that some unknown skeleton of mine will appear. I am grateful to have done the work to not be in their shoes.
It’s a challenging time to be a man and it’s not going to get easier.
The Double Trap
Men are taught the importance of our game faces at a very young age. We are taught to not show pain, weakness, or fear and advised to push down any emotion that may get in our way. We are told to “grin and bear it,” “take it like a man,” and, definitely, not to be a “pussy.” We stuff these negative thoughts away, which then fester in our shadow (i.e., the part of our psyche we don’t observe). Men do not feel free to say “I don’t know,” fearing embarrassment, loss of a work opportunity or a chance with a woman, or suffering some blow to our reputation. While it's a running joke in our society that men won’t ask for directions,the underbelly of this truth only furthers the armoring of men and the way we are being trained to never be vulnerable. Instead, we tend to fake it until we make it and put ourselves in precarious situations without asking for help. The effect is that we don’t give ourselves a chance to grow and learn at a natural rate.
We are facing a time of rising challenges for men without the space or opportunity to express our fear. We suffer silently, don’t ask for help, and off-gas our fear with toxic behavior and anger. In his landmark book No More Mr. Nice Guy, Dr. Robert Glover defines the nice-guy syndrome as men fixing and care-taking, seeking approval from others, avoiding conflict, and believing they must repress their feelings. Men acting out the nice-guy behaviors are anything but nice. Instead, they are dishonest, secretive, manipulative, and compartmentalized. Moreover, they are often deeply angry and frustrated, but push down these feelings in order to get along.
In my experience of teaching, one of the hardest things to skillfully handle is a man’s ego. I know this territory extremely well: I used to be a stubborn one myself and, in the beginning of my journey, it was my hardest obstacle to overcome. The ego is here to protect us, and mine was determined that my personal development was a dangerous war zone to avoid. I was a nice guy who loved women but truly didn’t understand a thing about them. Since I wanted to look good, I postured that I had it all handled and manipulated my way to avoid any viewpoint that showed my lack of education and experience around women. My teachers encouraged me to have a healthier relationship to my ego, to increase my awareness of its actions, and transform it from my “boss” to my “ally.” In doing so, I was slowly growing my capacity to be more vulnerable and allowing my personal growth to occur. Although this was not an easy process, it was a very valuable one.
If you are a typical man, your ego creates a solid wall of protection around you. This fosters an experience for women of not feeling safe speaking their truth to you because they fear either hurting your tender ego or inviting your wrath and/or disconnection. They’ve learned, over the generations, to use more subtle ways to get what they want. When this pattern plays out, you may call them sneaky, but the truth is that you have not shown your willingness to listen to them. Every time a woman withholds the truth from you, she robs you of an opportunity to grow and expand your EQ (emotional quotient). Furthermore, when women do not speak their truth, they enforce their belief system that it’s part of a woman’s life to suffer through negative experiences rather than risk a man being upset. By not speaking about their truths, they will suppress these feelings until they explode somewhere down the line. You will then exacerbate the problem by calling them being bitchy, moody, or the ugliest of all—"it must be the that time of the month."
This double trap creates more and more distance between the genders. If you are not willing to see your lack of connection to your emotions and your inability to hold hers, you will continue this path of disconnection. When I am asked, “Where are the good men?,” I point to those I know who are doing the work to get in connection with all parts of themselves. My goal in this chapter is to wake you up to start your journey. It is time to confront t
hese challenges.
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THE SOCIETY OF DISAPPROVAL
Swimming in a Sea of Disapproval
We live in a society of disapproval. You are taught, since childbirth, that you are doing it absolutely wrong. Through the non-stop influence of our media (3,000 to 5,000 media messages per day), you are blasted every day with pervasive evidence that you are not smart enough or active enough, that you are working too hard or too little, and that your clothes are out of date and you definitely need a shower.
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