For more than fifty years I have enjoyed a successful career in the emerging men’s special medicine and health. In a recent article, “Men’s work: Why I do what I do”, I replied to a request from a colleague to answer these two questions:
- Why are you doing what you do?
- What are you receiving?
As many colleagues I know in the “auxiliary professions”, I have developed an early interest to help others when a family crisis turned my world upside down. When I was five years old, my father in the middle of my life took an overdose of hypnotic pills as he had become more and more depressed when he could not find a job to support his family. Although he did not die, our lives were never the same.
My father was devoted to Camarillo State Hospital, north of our Los Angeles home. My uncle Harry visited my father every Sunday and was accused by my mother to go with him. I was confused and scared and asked my mother why I had to go. He told me:
“Because your father needs you.”
He also thanked me for being the “good little man”, a role that has caused great pressure, confusion and unimaginable demands I have made to myself all these years.
I grew up wondering what happened to my father when it happens to me and what I could do to keep it from happening to other men and their families. My own journey of treatment and what I have learned is reflected in my most popular books and on-line lessons:
- Irritable male syndrome: Understanding and managing the 4 main causes of depression and aggression.
- Looking for love in all the wrong places: overcoming romantic and sexual addictions.
- My distant dad: healing the wound of the family’s father.
As a child, he pushed the role of caregiver long before I was able to help anyone, I learned to sacrifice my own needs to take care of others. The old proverb: “It is best to give than to receive“It seemed the most natural thing in the world. It took years of healing, self-reflecting and support to find out that I had to give myself before I really had anything I could give to others.
This truth came to my house when my wife and I lifted our two young children. As every parent knows, young children require a huge amount of time, attention, love and care. But if we do not take care of ourselves, we can easily be shocked and burned. I was forced In self-care when my doctor told me that my stressful work would kill me if I didn’t get a regular exercise.
My wife told me that our marriage would not survive if we had no more time for each other away from children. He insisted on a Wednesday, date-night, which soon became sacred. Over the years I kept finding ways to give others without changing myself.
Give first: The power of guidance
In recent years I have been approached by experts in the field who had books or programs that come and have asked for my support for promoting their work. I reject most demands that they are not in line with my experience or where I do not feel that my help will make a significant contribution to the men’s health.
I see part of my role as a senior in the field to offer support and guidance to others. For those who felt that they did a significant job in the field of gender and health specialist and where I felt I had something important to offer, we created time to talk. Here are some of the people I felt it would be useful to do an on-line interview, write an article and share it with my great community:
I do not charge for the interview period, writing articles and sharing them with my communities. I have helped from others in the past and I like to help where I can. But this is not only “giving”. I always get something back. May be from the person I helped. Can be from someone else. The old saying “what’s going on, comes around”, seems appropriate.
I recently found a book, Give first: The power of guidance by Brad Feld. Feld has been a businessman and an early stage investor since 1987, he founded two business capital businesses and multiple companies, including Techstars. His view of giving helped me to understand what I did for some time. Says:
“One of my deep beliefs about the secret success in life is to give before you arrive. In this approach, I am always willing to try to help someone with no clear expectation of what is in it for me.
“However, with the investment of time and energy in front without a specific defined result, I found that over time the rewards that return to me exceed my craziest expectations.”
This is definitely true to me and I believe it is true to most colleagues I know who are successful in their careers and in their lives. Based on his work on Techstars (Techstars is a worldwide starting up and business capital accelerator, founded in 2006 and is based in New York.) Brad Feld and his partner David Cohen developed “The Techstars Mentor Manifesto” with 18 practices elaborating in the book. Here are some of the points that resonate with me and my job:
- Be authentic – practical what you preach.
- Be immediate. Tell the truth, as hard.
- Hear. (With your heart as well as your head).
- Clearly committed to advise or not to do so. Whether it’s fine.
- The best mentor relationships eventually become two -way.
- You know what you don’t know. Say “I don’t know” when you don’t know. “I don’t know” is preferable to influence.
- Be optimistic.
- Provides specific tips that can be activated. Don’t be unclear.
- Be provocative/powerful but never destroyed.
- Have empathy. Remember that newly established businesses are difficult.
Although Feld’s book, Give first, It was written by his experience as a businessman who develops starting communities, I believe that there is a lot of wisdom here for parents, therapists, business leaders, artists, writers and therapists. For example, you can read an article I wrote to give love, “The 5 stages of go-fiver love and wedding” and one An interview with the writer with the best sales John David Mann.
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