My life changed when I was about 20. At the time I was an art student in Chicago. At the time I thought that all I wanted to do was make paintings, get recognition for them, and hopefully get a job teaching art somewhere cool. I was very committed. I had my own studio and took the pursuit of art very seriously. I was also a recovering addict at the time and had taken up practices like meditation to help me cultivate spirituality. In general, I thought I was pretty cool and had a good life planned out. What I didn’t know is that I was about to get my ass kicked by an elderly Macedonian nun. The ass-kicking took place when one of my professors showed our class a documentary about Mother Teresa. In one part of the film, they showed Mother Teresa and her nuns helping some spastic… Read More
2015: The Year of the Conscious Man
Okay – I am calling it: this is the Year of the Conscious Man. With American Father’s Day just 10 days away now, and all of the token gestures and cards and powertools being purchased, I want to stake this claim. I wanted to say “this is the Year of the Conscious Father, but that might make some men feel excluded. But when I say Conscious Father I include all men. Dads, grandpas, sons, gay men – all men. When a man comes into his power – he becomes a Father to his world. He becomes the one who takes care of stuff and protects what needs to be protected. He becomes the one who does hard shit when no one else wants to. When I say say conscious – don’t get me wrong: I am not talking about “consciousness”. I am not talking about awakening kundalini or about men… Read More
Decoding BACKBONE: Purpose, Passion and Power for the Modern Man
The subtitle for my new Men’s Book BACKBONE is “The Modern Man’s Ultimate Guide to Purpose, Passion, and Power“. The publishing world is a funny commercial entity. Every new book has to gave a snazzy title and subtitle. And if you don’t look deeper, you could make the mistake of reading my book title this way. After going around and around with my publisher, this final title and subtitle came to me as THE TITLE – when I finally wrote it the way it is now, I wasn’t open to any more discussion. The book is like a course in book form to help men develop “backbone” – that uniquely masculine mix of energies that help a man hold his own on the journey of life and get and give the very best to their world. Men who lack backbone are disappointers. They disappoint their families, they disappoint their lovers…. Read More
