Being the Rock

I see some gentleman at this time who need this inspiration;



A high school football movie comes to mind... Johnny Be Good? I can't remember...

A player gets hurt after a play, and complains to the coach; "Coach, I think I broke my [Richard]!"

The coach's response?

"Rub some dirt on it, and get back in there!"

Men are strange creatures... we are prone to the same forces which women are, and prone to the same collapse. Yet, it seems that for us, we first must be WILLING to collapse.

Why is it that a rib from a comrade will somehow give us enough vigor to take that next step, and the next, then the next?

Maybe it is the way we are wired to rise to challenges.

Now, in some eyes I am still a pup. But, in my time, I have worked with a broad range of men (and women) from a menagerie of backgrounds, levels of education, and social placements.

Yet, "the game" remains ever intact. The constant jabber and exchange of jabs and taunts, the stream of endless, almost boyish, playfulness never ceases. Most of the dialogue that happens between male colleagues, in my observation, has two possible outcomes if one were to attempt to carry it on to interaction with women; 1) a sexual harassment lawsuit, 2) an apology for being crass, rude, or cruel (and possibly another lawsuit).


http://artofmanliness.com/2012/07/20/getting-tough-with-yourself/


Get tough on yourself, not your spouse. Not your children.


Take a look around; MB is tough on men, too.

Thanks everyone. Two words come to mind "Man Up". We need a reminder every once in a while. Now where's my tissue....

In the clip, Steve Paulson interviews Donovan Campbell, currently an author and business executive and also a veteran of three combat deployments � two in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. In 2004, Campbell was serving as a Marine platoon leader at the beginning of the insurgency in Ramadi. His platoon saw a ton of combat, and half of his unit would eventually be wounded. Campbell pledged to get all his men home alive, but during an attack, one of Campbell�s men was killed. Paulson and Campbell revisit an interview they did four years ago about the tragic incident, and Campbell speaks about meeting the killed Marine�s mother, and apologizing to her for failing to bring her son home. He speaks stirringly about how a leader must take responsibility, even if he�s not directly to blame for something:

�I still own my responsibility in the failure to bring him home. It may not have been my fault, but it was my responsibility. I was the leader and there was only one person to look to, when you, for everything that your men do or fail to do, and that�s the leader�That�s the right mentality to have, even though you may err on the side of carrying too much weight. Particularly as I�ve seen leadership as applied in, well, at least in my context in the business world, I think that the Marines get it right, and they got it right by teaching me from the get-go that hey, it is your job as a leader to accept responsibility, that�s what you do, particularly to accept responsibility for failure. And when you�re given these forty young men, we�re going to tell you your life is no longer about yourself, it�s about taking care of them and achieving your mission. That�s a, I realize now that that�s a rare philosophy, and that�s a rare leadership model. We say that life is not about you anymore. The minute you pin on the rank, and the minute you accept that paycheck, you accept responsibility and you accept a commitment to something greater than yourself. And I think that applies just as much now as it did then.�

All humans are essentially ego-driven creatures. Starting from a young age we develop an identity � a self-concept and self-image � constructed of our beliefs and how we view ourselves. Most of us think of ourselves as pretty decent people, better than average in certain areas, maybe a little worse than average in a few, but always trying to do our best. We believe we see the world realistically, and act rationally.

When our own thoughts and behaviors, or the accusation of another, challenges our cherished self-concept, we experience what is called cognitive dissonance � a form of mental discomfort and tension. Cognitive dissonance arises when you attempt to hold two conflicting beliefs/attitudes/ideas/opinions at the same time. For example: �I know smoking is bad for me�but I smoke a pack a day anyway.� Because our minds crave consonance and clarity over contradiction and conflict, we immediately seek to dissipate the mental tension created by cognitive dissonance. The smoker can reduce their dissonance either by throwing the cigarettes away and trying to quit, or by thinking to himself as he lights up, �People say that smoking is bad, but my grandfather smoked two packs a day for fifty years and never got cancer. It�s fine.�

When we make mistakes, the gap between our questionable behavior and our sterling self-concept creates cognitive dissonance. We can allay this dissonance either by admitting that we made a mistake and revaluating our self-concept in light of it, or by justifying the behavior as not in conflict with our self-concept after all.

The pieces the brain chooses to compose our memories are those that best preserve and protect our self-concept. We have all had experiences where our memory of an event differed from that of another person. While the ensuing argument often presumes that one person is remembering it accurately, and one is not, what is more likely is that each is remembering it from their own angle � one that highlights their innocence as opposed to culpability.

Memories also change over time, as our present experiences and attitudes alter and shape how we see the past. This bears reiteration: Our memory of the past doesn�t simply shape who we are today, we also shape the memory according to how we�re doing in the present.

For example, a study asked teenagers and parents to come into a lab and list their areas of disagreement, then spend ten minutes discussing the conflict together and trying to resolve it. The teenagers would then rate how they felt about the conflict and their parents. Six weeks later, the teenagers were asked to remember how they felt about the conflict at the time of their first visit to the lab; those who were currently feeling close to their parents remembered the rating they had given as lower than it was, while those whose relationships to their parents were more strained remembered their rating as being worse than it was. Their current feelings altered the memory of how they had felt in the past.

This distortion can be magnified as we think over the sweep of our lives. Every person feels the need to fit their personal history into a narrative. The lead-up, the turning points, the bad guys and good guys, our triumphs over obstacles that made us who we are. For instance, �I grew up in a very religious family with uber-strict parents. I never questioned what they taught me until I got to college in New York. And then I became an atheist, and my family disowned me. And I�ve had to make it on my own but it�s made me stronger.�

We explain our lives through the filter of this narrative. And if we�re currently in a chapter of the story where we feel more down-and-out than triumphant, we�re inclined to remember episodes of the past that we believe led to our current struggles and confirm our narrative, and forget details that are dissonant with it. This is often the case for those who blame their parents for how they�ve turned out.

Hope its ok to join in here�not in recovery but this thread has really spoken to me. I think it�s important for men to support each other. I�ve got no real input as I�m not willing to pull the trigger on separating from my wife. I can�t stand the idea of losing my kids even part time. I�ve already told my wife if she wants to leave�no problem. If she planned to replace me that dude better be prepared to taste some blood!

I�m tired of the stereotype of the stupid �just another one of my kids� husband. I�d like to find a way have her see me as an equal�not a wallet or another child she has to take care of.

That first day his mom walked in to talk to me, she was upset about seeing him crash. She said to me "I'm tired of seeing him get hurt and rejected, he saw this in a video and thought he would try it. But no matter where I take him he is always cast aside... gymnastics wouldn't take him, martial arts, soccer..." I stopped her.

I explained what I saw, "Listen your kid is trying 20 times harder than anyone to try to prove that he is normal, that he can do it. I believe he has the potential to get better, you just have to bring him back. I expect to see you guys back next time." She smiled and she sat back down and watched.

A month-and-a-half later the class was having a hard time getting over a 5ft wall. Rooster ran up the wall with no hands and landed on top. With tears in her eyes, his mom looked over and said "Oh my God, that's my son."

The next day, Rooster adds me on Facebook.

He sees me online and says "Hey man, thank you."

Me: "It's no problem, when you train hard, you get better."

Rooster: "No man, not that.

The first time I saw my mom walk into that class, I knew that it meant it was time to go. This was the last time that I was going to try something new.

I was going to give up on everything and just stay home on the computer, but as I was walking over I heard what you said about me and it reminded me that some people do care about me and still believe that I can be someone.

So I never gave up, cause I wanted to make you proud."