Men mentoring men thru the passages of their lives.

Kicking Stuff Around

I like to kick things around and test out ideas and debate and see what I can learn from others and perhaps change my views and my life. Other times I just like being silly. So, this is a place to kick stuff around and be serious or silly or whatever. The views expressed herein may not be that of the management.....

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Permalink Reply by Richard Fairchild on September 9, 2010 at 12:42pm

I hear many initiated men complain about how there have been tens or hundreds of men take a NWTA and attend I Group once or twice, or even for a number of years, and then 'disappear' to do other stuff. That is a viewpoint that regards ones allegiance to the agent of change (an MKP Weekend, an MKP Group) as the main criteria of whether the MKP program works; as opposed to seeing a man go forth into the world to do what he conceives to be his mission (with hardly a look backward) as one of, if not the primary goal of MKP.

The more we fuss about not enough men helping out, the more we focus on how many 'active' men we have and how much money our community or MKP Canada etc has, rather than on being the change we want, the more we will decline.

Equally the more we change our program to assist us in recruiting men, the more we may loose our identity --- and move from being a movement that wants to change the world one man at a time to one that wants to be a premier training organization, or a shill for some particular sociological or political viewpoint.

For this reason I suggest that we will loose our identity and fail to fulfill our vision/mission if we do not pay very careful attention to our sources of funding, and any corporate or special interest sponsorships we may accept, or public policy pronouncements that we as a local men's group and/or national organization would like to make.

If you want to engage this kind of viewpoint, check out my blog - or come on back to me here. :)

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Permalink Reply by Gleb Gladwin on October 8, 2010 at 4:17pm

Richard
I had no idea this was here, again a pull system is very risky.

My view is that we take no grants, no government money, no tax receipts, no corporate sponsorships, no gambling revenues and we proudly state that.

I judge that for the most part, earning money in how the vast majority of our society judges men AND I get that and am not opposed to that. I am against that being the ONLY criteria, however exchanging any other form of valuation would mean virtually the same. Certain men would still be the movers and shakers regardless. Money is not the root of evil, it's coveting others with money. Leadership doesn't only equal domination and and evil male patriachy, it's simply a fact of life that leaders make things happen and I believe it is a fundamental and more dominant male characteristic. I'm not a great leader but I always step up in everything I become part of, I have to bite my tongue more often then not when I know that I simply don't have the time to take on another project. My "just being" is speaking up and leading the way or helping to allow other leadership to come forward. As I've aged, my leadership looks different in that I mentor others knowing my limitations. But the fire has never gone out. As with money, coveting the leadership abilities (at least what to others appear to be perqs) of others creates more chaos than no leadership or poor leadership.

What I judge is that we need millions of better leaders all over the world and I also judge that working to learn the skills of great leadership doesn't always produce great leaders but it does virtually always produce healthy, wise and mature followers who know how to support a leader as well as hold him/her accountable as needed. Equally the emotional intelligence skills we learn and teach are fundamental to all our relationships and dealings. Emotionally intelligent men rarely abuse others, they show up all over society as solid citizens, they tend to earn almost double the lifetime income and they a virually always net contributors to society.

Charge more for the training, it's worth it, it SHOULD pay for ALL of the marketing, publicity and sales we need and leave some money at full price to help men who demonstrate they have been actively trying and not succeeding to get what they need from the training and agree to pay for another man in the future. I judge we should be VERY picky who comes to our training and fundamentally shift away from the 'helping" genre to an exclusive men's club which prizes, values, teaches, rewards and demands that men become emotionally intelligent and become better leaders.

What I want is a Mensa club for leaders and other men who really get emotional intelligence and practice it 24/7.

For men who want more of a service club type system, which we are more or less now, all the power to you, figure out a dues system, figure out what mission you want to support and do it. Subsets of this may be sweat lodge, elders, multiculti... lots of cool stuff for men who want that.

The group that runs the NWTA will initiate a number of men each year to help keep your ranks full.

Some will will choose to be in both groups.

Right now our focus is so vague and off beat that a lot of men fear asking their friends because they are still wrapped up in conventional paradigms and we are not conventional. But I would argue that we shouldn't be conventionally unconventional which to most people I've interviewed means new agey, crystal waving mostly left wingish and social causes type of unconventional.

I want a much scarier, leading edge powerful container to be our hallmark, not silly exposes on nudity.

Gleb

Richard Fairchild said:

I hear many initiated men complain about how there have been tens or hundreds of men take a NWTA and attend I Group once or twice, or even for a number of years, and then 'disappear' to do other stuff. That is a viewpoint that regards ones allegiance to the agent of change (an MKP Weekend, an MKP Group) as the main criteria of whether the MKP program works; as opposed to seeing a man go forth into the world to do what he conceives to be his mission (with hardly a look backward) as one of, if not the primary goal of MKP.

The more we fuss about not enough men helping out, the more we focus on how many 'active' men we have and how much money our community or MKP Canada etc has, rather than on being the change we want, the more we will decline.

Equally the more we change our program to assist us in recruiting men, the more we may loose our identity --- and move from being a movement that wants to change the world one man at a time to one that wants to be a premier training organization, or a shill for some particular sociological or political viewpoint.

For this reason I suggest that we will loose our identity and fail to fulfill our vision/mission if we do not pay very careful attention to our sources of funding, and any corporate or special interest sponsorships we may accept, or public policy pronouncements that we as a local men's group and/or national organization would like to make.

If you want to engage this kind of viewpoint, check out my blog - or come on back to me here. :)