This example demonstrates how open cycles drain energy. The unknown causes distress and mystery for your boss and then her worst-case scenario in mind arises. I would recommend closing the communication cycle this way:
After the first message: “I’m on it and will text when completed.”
After completing the task: “File dropped. See you tomorrow!”
Total time to send two texts: Less than 15 seconds.
Result: Disconnected avoided, boss happy, possible pay raise down the line.
Co-Creating Dishonesty
In the beginning of our self-development adventure, Carol asked to talk with me about a serious topic. We sat in our living room quietly, hands touching, and I could feel the depth of her nervousness. After a few tension-filled moments, she revealed to me she had cheated on me with an ex-boyfriend. I sat mute, feeling the burn of this truth, and tried to keep myself calm. She then told me this transgression had left her guilt-ridden for a year and had caused her to withdraw from me and from our marriage. Many confusing moments clicked in my mind and I was overwhelmed with sensation. I stood up. She followed me as I walked into the kitchen, feeling the maelstrom of my emotions: anger, righteousness, sadness, mistrust, and disgust. We quietly sat on the counters while I went deeper into my feelings. Then something unexpected happened. I admitted to myself that I knew something had been amiss for a year and I hadn’t brought it up with her. I also recalled that, on the weekend of the infidelity, she had been particularly distant, yet I had said nothing. I understood that my silence had co-created this year of disconnection.
I then asked something that shocked both of us: “Did I not make it safe enough for you to tell me the truth?”
Her eyes quickly filled with tears and we embraced. It was an epic moment in my development; I realized that, when one partner cheats in a relationship, he or she is deemed the criminal. Now, however, I realized that both partners were responsible for co-creating the environment where the truth could not be told. Yes, she had broken an agreement, lied to me for a year, and had a sexual affair with another man. However, I had always desired to sleep with other women but had never felt safe to tell this to Carol. I had never acted because I figured I was going to get caught. Desire is desire and, if I created a space for my wife to tell me the truth, what would life be like? My relationship to withholding and lying had changed forever.
Starting with Honesty
When I started dating my wife Morgan, we became emotionally intimate in our first few days of courting. Before our second date, I wrote the following to her about my desire for having a non-monogamous relationship with her: “Okay, so I’ll ask a really blunt question. I want you to feel open to explore with me. I also want you to feel free to explore with others. How would it feel if my explorations weren't just with you?”
This was a risky communication because I had no idea how she would react to it. There was a high chance she may have turned tail and run away from me just asking the question. However, it was more important to me to be honest from the beginning than to hide this desire of mine. She responded in kind, and we were therefore able to continue to deepen our relationship. This honesty became a template of communication—a foundational rule between us—to fully express our desires.
We all face this in the initial stages of dating. We are well acquainted with the practice of withholding information to avoid ruffling feathers, and with keeping some parts of ourselves hidden. In some relationships, the truth will be revealed somewhere down the line, causing betrayal. For others, the person withholding may be able to keep the secret throughout the life of the relationship. I recommend another option for starting off: being transparent, representing yourself authentically, and letting the chips fall where they may. I am not prescribing that you verbally vomit all your skeletons on the first date. However, when you start to feel that this flirtation is turning into a relationship, it’s time to lay your cards on the table for your lover to see them and, therefore, you.
It can be scary to believe you will truly be accepted in today’s society. Society may be hiding and you may have been trained to follow suit. Still, there is no law saying you cannot go against the grain to live a life of being unHIDDEN. Someone who is straightforward, vulnerable, and honest can seem like a breath of fresh air.
Masculine vs Feminine Communication
In her landmark book You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, Dr. Deborah Tanner discusses the concept of cross-cultural conversation. She asserts the idea that men tend to speak and hear a language of status and independence, while women use a language of connection and intimacy. I also like to describe it this way:
Masculine communication is for production, while feminine communication is for connection.
This difference in how men and women act can be extremely frustrating for a man. I’ve often heard complaints such as these from male coaching clients: “Why doesn’t she just f’in ask for what she wants? Why does it have to be this whole production to get the truth?” The reason is that you are paying the price for all the times you didn’t make it safe for her speak the truth, on top of all the other men in her life who minimized her because of her gender. Please take that in for a moment. As a man in today’s society, we have many challenges, but when it comes to being discounted and diminished, we have no idea what it is like to be a member of the female gender. Women are taught to hedge their bets, handle your fragile ego, and make sure her security—physical, emotional, and financial—is not threatened by what she finds the courage to tell you. She doesn’t ask for what she wants because she doesn’t trust that you can handle it. In the following section, I discuss at length the concept of presence, where you can actually heal her wounds by creating a space where she can have a new experience of an unHIDDEN man embracing all of her humanity. In my view, it is one of the greatest gifts you can give her.
Masculine communicators employ male speak, which means we are focused on production rather than connection. We want to minimize effort to maximize results. The feminine, on the other hand, tends to enjoy the whole process and want the extended, connective creation of intimacy over the task. Because the masculine and the feminine have different objectives, we often miss the other’s communication. For example,
The masculine communicator wants to move the box from point A to B.
The feminine communicator wants to know how the other feels while moving the box.
Does it now make sense why there might be some anger in this conversation. “Why do you need to know how I feel?” the masculine might say, “it’s totally a waste of time … it’s inefficient.” This might remind you of the couple traveling from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The feminine might respond, “I don’t care about the box being moved, honey, I just want to know who you are!” I’m not saying either side is right. However, if you’re willing to at least understand the other’s motivations, you can create a connection rather than destroy one.
Communication as a Practice
A client recently came to me to uplevel his communication skills. He had a desire to have better relationships with his own negative self-talk, his children, and his wife. In the first hour of coaching, it was clear to me that his childhood experiences had forced him to abandon his tender feminine side from an early age for self-protection. I kept offering viewpoints he could understand (from his very masculine brain) on the benefits of improving his relationship to his feelings. When he resisted, I knew I had to change tactics. I asked him if he played poker.
Do you know how there are two different sides to the game? There’s the understanding of the cards, the odds when you have a certain hand, the computation of when to hold 'em, right? And then there is an intuitive side, the times you’re sizing up your opponents, feeling into your intuition to figure out if he’s bluffing or not?
Well, learning to engage in both sides of masculine and feminine communication is like employing both skills in poker. You want to know the logic of your words but
also sense the impact on the person you’re talking to. It’s the same thing.
When you add the opposite side of your core communication side, you are not minimizing the one you normally use. It is not a zero-sum game. It’s an extra bonus—an extra superpower—to ensure what you want to say comes across.
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BUILD YOUR SELF-ESTEEM
The Addiction of External Validation
Men are external validation junkies, which creates the habit of constantly looking outside yourself for proof of your worth. This usually is focused on the women you’re with, the amount of money you make, the car you drive, and/or the power you have. You judge yourself based on the circumstances rather than the man you are. The danger of depending on these outside forces is that they tend to be unsteady, non-linear, and possibly unstable. Here’s what I see:
Your level of money changes.
The stock market can drop.
Your company lets you go for reasons beyond your control.
Your beautiful wife decides she doesn’t want to be married anymore.
When you base your self-worth on these factors, you have zero control on their stability. It might even lead to a feeling of constantly teetering on the edge of disaster. Here is my favorite analogy for describing this habit: Looking externally for your validation from a woman is like betting your rent on a tech stock.
Some days, you’re flying high and it's easy. Other days, your investment is under water and you’re headed back home to live with your folks. It’s just not a wise investment.
Alternatively, the greatest gift you can give yourself is one of self-validation. It is like having an internal motor engine that does not require you to stop at a station every day to fill up the gas tank with overpriced gasoline. With this form of validation, you can just fill your own tank. Through my years of personal work, I’ve taught myself to have my own internal validation. The power of this practice is that is I know, no matter what happens, I’m doing the best I can and I’m doing it right.
You’re a Good Man
When I taught my men’s program, I sensed that my students typically could not see their true potential and didn’t understand the concept of self-validation. In a moment of inspiration, I came up with what would soon be called the Good Man Exercise. In the exercise, I asked a student—let’s call him Paul—to stand in front of me. I would instruct him to loosen his shoulders, stand straight, and connect with me, eye to eye. I would then ask him to try to drop his facial gestures and relax his face. For these few moments, he could relax and allow me to truly see him. When I was ready, I would address him a neutral tone.
Me: Paul, you are a good man.
Paul: Yes Robert, I am a good man.
If I was convinced that he actually believed he was a good man, I would nod and Paul would sit down. However, 99.9 percent of the time, it was apparent that he was faking.
Okay, that was good, Paul, but your voice lifted at the end and it felt like you were saying more of a question rather than a statement. Let’s try again.
We’d try again.
Me: Paul, you are a good man.
Paul: Yes, Robert. I am a good man.
Me: Okay, better with the tone, but this time you said it quickly like you were trying to rush through it. Let’s try it again.
Paul: Yes … Robert … I am … a … good … man.
Me: That was slower, Paul, but it felt robotic. Can we try again?
Paul: Yes, Robert, I am a good man.
Me: Oh, so much better. Now give it to me one more time.
Paul: Yes, Robert, I am a good man.
Me: YES!”
Most of the time the guys could complete this exercise in a few minutes. However, one student took more than 20 minutes to complete it. While it was torture for everyone watching, when he finally did land the communication, the entire class and I cheered, believing in his own belief of his power and greatness, perhaps for the first time in his life. The lesson here is this: the only person stopping you from believing you are a good man is you.
How to Build Your Self-Esteem
A friend liked to watch me from the back of the room when I used to teach workshops. Because I cared deeply about my students and their outcomes, I would take risks with truth-telling, which would sometimes lead to miscues—the word I preferred over mistakes.. To me, this was part of the experience of being a good teacher. So my miscues were part of the process. My practice would be when I made a miscue, I would slow down, authentically apologize without shame, and ask permission to try again. My friend would say, “You never got flustered by your mistakes. You never lost your tempo, you never lost your speed. How did you do that?”
The way I did it was simple but not easy. In the first part of my life, before my experience with Erwan, I had already noted the inefficiency of depending on others for my validation and had decided instead to build my own internal motor. I started with the viewpoint that, no matter what I was doing, I was doing the best I could. Since I believed I was giving everything I had, when I did make a miscue, I would forgive myself as soon as humanly possible. Like falling down in yoga class, I celebrated the fact that I had even tried.
I believe beating yourself up or practicing extended self-deprecation is just a legal way to be lazy. Our egos are so connected to looking good that we spend excessive energy when we make a miscue. This doesn’t mean I stop self-critiquing or asking for feedback; instead, it means I’m not self-flagellating because I erred. There is a subtle but important difference. How does one do that? How does one build self-confidence? When asked, my answer is the mantra I learned in a 12-step meeting: Self-esteem is built upon esteemable acts.
Esteemable acts are those actions or practices you personally deem honorable and inside your integrity. They are the challenging aspects of lives that build your character as a man. They answer the call of adventure of the hero’s journey—think of the 12 labors of Hercules or Jason’s retrieval of the golden fleece.
To build self-esteem, a man must dedicate himself to not taking shortcuts; e.g., pursuing get rich quick schemes, taking steroids, or stepping on someone else to climb the social ladder. It takes a level of discernment and practice to start to see what builds and what diminishes your esteem.
Examples of things that build my esteem
Being honest with Morgan
Going to the gym
Keeping my commitments
Paying my debts on time
Examples of things that diminish my esteem
Misleading a client
Watching porn
Eating junk food
Not being forthright with my miscues
This may seem pretty straightforward, but it’s amazing how often we fool ourselves to think “I can cheat just a little bit,” or “That one little white lie won’t cause too much damage,” or “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” While we may not confront some of our self-esteem diminishing acts, our psyches and our bodies remember them. In the INTEGRATION section, I’ve included some examples for you to create your own lists.
Perfection Includes the Propensity for Change
A rose is perfect in all its forms, from the sprouting of its petals, to their opening, to its full flowering, to its wilting. I consider it beautiful, flawless, and a powerful representation of the life cycle. Think of that rose for a moment and try to point out a flaw. What is the basis of your judgments? I hold the same definition of perfection for myself and my students. I know your inner critic is exceptionally good at finding those tender spots that want to debate this viewpoint. I suspect you are thinking about the rejection on Tinder, the extra 15 pounds, or the meager salary you’re pulling down. You easily see the flaw but you cannot see how this is part of your hero’s journey and, in itself, perfect.
We often live in the place of “It’ll be good when I__________
Lose 10 pounds
Finish college
Get a girlfriend
Get rid o
f my current girlfriend
Have a million dollars in the bank
Stop working
We tend to live in future time, never acknowledging the overpowering good of right now. And right now. And right now. In doing so, we rob ourselves of the pleasure of this moment and hold ourselves back from building self-esteem. Here’s what I think: You are perfect just as you are. Right now. Yes, you! If I were with you today, I would have you say this out loud:
Yes, Robert, I am perfect just as I am right now.
Yes, Robert, I am a good man.
Perfection includes the propensity for change. While you may think of perfection as a static form of yourself, the fact is, on a biological level alone, you are constantly changing. When you climb one mountain, do you immediately look for the next larger mountain to climb, or do you revel in the success of our task? My recommendation: Do the latter first until you feel the deep joy inside of you. Then consider the prior.
Let’s take this to the next level. Since you understand that you are perfect and you have the capacity to evolve, let’s discuss the concept of making mistakes. If there is anything a man fears, it is making a mistake or—even worse--failure. I would like to reframe this fear and share my belief we can never “fail” as long as we’re willing to do the work and learn the lesson of the experience.
Unhidden Page 7