The Men’s Group: Snippet #1

Coach Nick and I are close to finishing the novel we’ve been working on since February 2016: The Men’s Group. It’s a novel about friendship, relationships, and the impact of being vulnerable. It’s been a long journey filled with so many learnings. We’ve both changed tremendously in the nearly six years we’ve been working on it. In the months ahead, as we finish the final draft and begin the process of finding an agent and pitching to publishers, I’m going to begin sharing snippets of what we’ve written. These snippets didn’t make it into the final draft, but I still see such value in them.

“You don’t want to grow up,” the facilitator said [to a 40-something man who had a disempowering belief that he was an unlovable child and always grew combative when coached], “because you don’t want to be responsible. When you’re irresponsible you get to stay small and distract yourself, and everyone else, from the greatness inside of you. If you were to grow up and choose to be a man, you’d have no excuse for not being everything you can possibly be. As long as you stay in that place of believing yourself an unloveable child, you don’t have to change anything. You can show up late. You can miss calls. You can throw tantrums. You can be who you’ve always been. That’s what you want. I know you say you want to change, but you have no interest in it. Not really. It’s too scary.”

Can you relate to this? 

I can. In fact, in my computer this is saved as “[Character Name’s] coaching for me.” Never mind that I wrote it! There have been plenty of times when I’ve talked so much about wanting things to be different but haven’t been willing to take responsibility for making that difference happen. Case in point: I’ve been talking about posting more online FOR MONTHS. Until recently, I’d done very little to take responsibility for that and do something about it. Well, here I am. Stay tuned for more snippets from previous The Men’s Group drafts!