In my last post we explored the concept of selfishness as it pertains to personal growth. To take the conversation a step further, we have to talk about service. Why? Because if you really want to talk about not being selfish, then a conversation about being self-less needs to happen.

But what is selflessness? What does that really mean? And how do I know when I am being selfish versus selfless?

I’m here to assert that by being “selfish” you can be genuinely selfless.

Selflessness, or serving and helping others, is one of the core pillars of being a revolutionary man. To live is to serve. If you want to be the kind of man leaves his mark, consider making service a central part of who you are and how you spend your time.

Conventional Service & Service Materialism

How is it that service is so often taught as “scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours?” In our modern, western culture, service seems to be fairly conditional. I’ll help you, but I expect something in return. I’ll give you my $20 million, but I want the stadium named after me.

Not only that, but service in many circles overtly excludes and discriminates against people. WTF?

For example, some religions teach that if you serve “correctly” and according to God’s will, going to heaven one day will be your reward. So rather than serve because it genuinely comes through me, I serve so that I can get the carrot– heaven.

Some groups will even teach their followers to only help certain groups of people while discriminating against others (people of color, gays, women). Hmmm. Seems fishy to me.

These examples are what I call service materialism—serving in hopes of material reward and discrimination cloaked in the name of service. Essentially, service materialism is when you use service as a way to confirm yourself or get what you want for your own benefit.

Idiot Compassion

Another term for this kind of behavior is “idiot compassion.” In a conventional sense, acting selfless gives you accolades and confirmation from friends, coworkers and colleagues. But remember, acting selfless doesn’t mean that you are selfless. Tibetan Buddhist master Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche called acting nice and kind “idiot compassion.”

Rinpoche defined Idiot compassion as “a slimy way of trying to fulfill your desire secretly.” Or as the karmayogini journal states, “It is when you give people what they want as opposed to what they need, all in the name of being nice and compassionate [so that you can feel better yourself].”

Idiot compassion then, has serious strings attached and is all about the givers own neurotic needs and desires.

However, for some of us, idiot compassion is the doorway to true compassion. I remember in my college fraternity we would do a philanthropy just to get the University, neighbors, and national office off our backs. But once we actually got in there and rolled up our sleeves with the elementary school kids, my heart would melt and I would have a blast genuinely serving the kids.

Genuine Service & True Compassion

Genuine service on the other hand, comes from your heart and there is no need to get anything in return, such as tithing, a trophy with your name on it, a back rub, or even a thank you. However, the irony is when we serve from an open, extended heart, we naturally get something in return.

Service is when I wake up in the middle of the night, five nights in a row, to hold or comfort my upset child. It just comes out of me. And I don’t need my wife, my son, or anyone to say “good job” or “hey thanks!”

Or, you might help a stranger with a dead battery jump their car without thinking about it or expecting anything. It’s just what you do.

True compassion doesn’t have preferences such as “I’ll help this person over here, but not over there.”  Service coming from true compassion transcends social, political or religious values and extends way beyond superficial or socio-economic barriers.

I’m painting the ideal, because in reality, we are all fairly preferential in the way we serve. For example, I can’t tell you how many times, I drove on by a stranded person with a broken down car as I sped past at 75 miles/hr, unwilling to stop because “I had to get somewhere.”

People often associate compassion with being nice or kind. Being nice doesn’t really go far enough if we look at true compassion. On the other hand, true compassion is responding to a situation once you have seen things as they are.  According to Rinpoche, “Love or compassion is the open path, is associated with ‘what is.’ In order to develop love–universal love, cosmic love, whatever you would like to call it–one must accept the whole situation of life as it is, both the light and the dark, the good and the bad.”

For me, that sums it up and when I can drop my agendas, be in the moment and respond from my heart, I know that I am serving from a genuine place.

Remember to consider making service a core pillar in your own life. The world needs more, conscious, bad ass, compassionate men out there. What if your life purpose was all about service to others?

Try making a commitment to living a life of service and see what you learn along the way.

For example,

I commit to living a life of service. I will value the people around me and cultivate both the intention and capacity to help them in ways that matter to them. I seek to understand idiot compassion versus true compassion.

Bottom line? The more you can attend to yourself, the more love and compassion you will have to serve.

Commitment 1. – Potential

I commit to reaching my potential and being the man I am capable of being. I commit to working on myself until I die. I am done with prioritizing comfort, safety, and security. No more hiding. I will get out of the bleachers and into the game. I am no longer willing to be a spectator to my own life.

Why not commit to reaching your potential and become a powerful, impactful man? It doesn’t mean you have to save the world.

It does mean that you commit to become the man you are capable to being—reaching your potential in this lifetime. Evolving each day to a realization of who you are.

By the time you are done reading these 10 commitments and the five pillars of revolutionary manhood, you will have a good idea of what is possible in your life and begin to move toward it if you haven’t already begun the process.

Practical Steps:

*Get honest with where you are in your life by doing a life inventory

*Ask yourself, “What kind of Man do I want to be?”

*Take action toward reaching your potential.

*Get involved in a men’s group to support you and to hold you accountable.

*Be realistic and go at a pace that works for you.

A lot of men ask me where the model for manhood is. Guess what?

There isn’t one.

But why there is no formal model for being a man?

There are plenty of informal models of how to be a man on TV, Hollywood and famous sports figures. In other words, because there is no formal model, we are left to observing other men in our day-to-day routines.

Therefore, we end up observing whomever we see the most: Our Dads and famous people who we see on TV and our computer on a regular basis.

As you already know, I’m not into ho-hum manhood exemplified by Homer Simpson, Jimmy Kimmel or even Lance Armstrong.

As much as I respect pro-athletes work ethic, their manhood modeling is far from badass.

And, while my Dad was amazing in many respects, he had his own limitations.

Remember that due to our lack of formal initiation into manhood in this culture, there is no template for young boys to become a man. It is all very vague.

In taking a risk, I am providing one formal model for manhood. It’s quite simple.

But as with any system or model, it must be tested against your own experience. And, the essential point is how I live it every day.

I call it the 5 Pillars of being a Man.

If you want to be the best man you can be, it is going to require that you go beyond status quo manhood.

I don’t claim to be “the” man. Ha, hardly. I am growing every day. Each day I am met with new challenges and the Universe reminds me of how I am not living into my potential.

Therefore, I strive to be a man who inspires others into their greatness.

I get one shot at this life and I want to die having given everything I could.

This model is not dogma. It is here for you to work from and explore. Consider it a blueprint from which to measure yourself as a Man

You might want to consider taking a life inventory in these categories.

I am just going to skim the surface on these. If you want to go into greater detail, cruise my website for these themes, download a much longer description of each here, or apply for my Men’s Leadership Training for 2010.

The 5 Pillars of Manhood

Pillar 1–Self-knowledge/ Self Mastery

This is represented by the central pillar (from top to bottom) in the logo above.

The foundational key to being a man in our current time in history means that you know yourself inside and out.  How well do you know yourself?

Do you understand your strengths and weaknesses? How much time do you spend self-reflecting?

You must be willing to be yourself fully without apology and without reservation. This requires to know all of you.

Our capacity to love others is dependent upon our capacity to love ourselves.

If you don’t know your foundational pillar and what makes you tick, chances are you will easily be thrown off in life.

Read more on self knowledge here.

Pillar 2 — Relationships

The next pillar is all about you in relationship to others. Life is about relating to other people.

If that’s true, how are your relationship skills? Intimacy? Sexually? Co-workers? Family?

There must be a feedback loop in life. If I just go it alone, I never know how others experience me and I never have anyone to love me, learn from me, or call bullshit on me.

Have you fully explored the unlimited possibilities of human connection and relationship?

Are you a judger? An enabler? A co-dependent person? How do you do relationship?

How are your relationships with men different than your relationships with women?

What tools do you employ to help you grow in this area? Do you have a mentor or coach? Are you in a men’s group?

In my father’s generation, men sucked it up and did everything on their own. But this leaves us very isolated and this approach to manhood is bankrupt.

Can you still be self-reliant AND be in relationship in a deep way?

Pillar 3—Leadership

Lee IaCocca recently wrote a great book “where have all the leaders gone?”

Ask yourself if you are living into your leadership potential?

Some men are naturally leaders, yes, but we all have the ability to lead.

This involves four main points:

• You have a willingness to take charge and be a leader.

• You are the leader of your own life. You take 100% responsibility for yourself and your life.

• You step up and speak out against social injustices

• You commit to non-violence and social justice as a primary leadership model

Pillar 4-Service (Compassion)

We are on this earth to serve, to help one another. A man dedicates his life to helping others.

He moves from “what can I get” out of life, to “what can I give life.”

You choose a life purpose that has something to do with helping others.

But your service does not come from “I should” serve because then I will get validation etc.  Service is just a part of who you are.

If you are not service oriented, you acknowledge this and begin to work on developing compassion and service toward others.

Pillar 5 Celebration

Life can get serious, challenging and difficult. We also need to smile and have a good time.

You make having fun a priority in your life.

Read more on celebration here.

The Empty Space around the logo.

You could call this the 6^th pillar, but empty space is just that—empty space. It represents the space within which we live our lives and cosmic LOVE.

This can also be seen as a man’s spirituality or spiritual connection.

To find out more about this more esoteric aspect of the logo, it is best explained and experienced in person at one of my live events.

Action Step:

Feel free to use this model as an outline for your life and the kind of man you are.

Evaluate your life in these areas using the life inventory.

I’ll leave you with a question I often ask:

“What kind of Man will you be?”

What is your relationship to fun, play, and celebration?

I was never much on celebration. My old man taught me that you don’t celebrate until you are on the summit. I also learned that celebrating was bragging and bad, especially if you didn’t win. So, I would just keep my personal victories to myself.

We humans are like this sometimes. We don’t celebrate unless we’ve won the big game or new salary. Vince Lombardy has a famous quote which is the credo of sports teams everywhere—”Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” Unless we see “winning” as something we do everyday, this attitude can perpetuate us being hard on ourselves and prolongs recognition about what is truly lovable and great in us right now.

Another classic example is my own birthday. For years I would poo poo my  birthday and not tell anyone. Then when my birthday would come and go without anyone noticing, I would feel resentful and unseen or unmet. The last couple of years I have been practicing celebrating openly and allowing the love to come pouring in from others. In fact, I just sent an evite out for my birthday celebration party.

Why celebrate?

Just like stuffing our sadness or anger, when we stuff our joy and love, we shut down that energy in our system and our bandwidth for feeling life experiences remains narrow. As my friend Justice Marshall reminded me, when we celebrate, we invite more of that energy into our lives. His words ring so true for me.

Not only that, but when we celebrate and share it with someone, we allow ourselves to be seen for who we are. We are also practicing self-love and self-respect. Sometimes we want others to notice or see how great we are because we are not willing to celebrate ourselves. Then we resent them for not reading into us. But it is our job to share our wins with others.

What to do?

So, I invite you to celebrate where you are right now in your life. Celebration is one of the core pillars of being a revolutionary man. We must learn to celebrate….a lot!

Celebration is not done to make yourself feel better or meant to distract yourself from your pain. It is simply to balance the scales of what is true. While it’s true that there might be pain in your life, there is also pleasure. There is always something little to celebrate. Most of us tend to focus on “lack” or what’s wrong with our lives as opposed to what is going well, what is working and where the love is.

Here are 6 simple ways to celebrate:

• First, notice your relationship to celebration.  Is it hard for you? Easy?
• Create a top-ten list of things you can genuinely celebrate right now (my list is below, add yours)
• One at a time, create a ritual to celebrate each. What are you celebrating about each? Why?
• Find another person or people and celebrate with them
• Make a commitment to start celebrating when things go well
• Purposely celebrate along the way. Don’t wait until your are on the summit.

Also, consider making a strong commitment to make this a regular part of your life. Here’s commitment 10 of the ten commitments of manhood.

Commitment 10 – Gratitude

I commit to having fun, celebrating what is already “right” in my life and being grateful for what I have. I also will practice an attitude of gratitude for every challenge in my life and seek to embrace its wisdom.

My top ten list:

Eleven (couldn’t help it) things I’m celebrating right now:

1. My relationship with myself
2. My relationship with my wife
3. My new 5 month old son
4. My Dad
5. My work
6. My sense of power, privilege and freedom I experience living where I do
7. My 108-day training and it’s mid-way point and the 9 men involved
8. My friends–you all know who you are
9. Nature & wilderness nearby
10. The fact that I wrote this post
11. New doors opening with HUGE possibilities

What about YOU? Share your list below.

Remember celebrating builds the celebratory energy around you. Watch this video all the way through as an example of what happens to others when one person celebrates:

Share your top ten list below!