Define Cool

Define ‘Cool’

Tennis great Roger Federer after an awesome back hand winner down the line as he walks pensive to the other side of the court to receive serve. Severely champion cool.

Rupi Kaur the Indian/Canadian poet has her own version of cool: smile, flick of the long black hair with the hand while eyes thinking of how to connect next. Poet cool.

On the inside, after you have done something authentic you are cooling down:

Authentic talent, authentic effort, authentic bringing things together for an elevated result.

Now your blood is reorganizing itself based on the impact of your new experience.

From the outside, this is magnetic to people’s attention even if they don’t know why. They usually don’t know why. This mystical magnetism is what we call cool.

Photo credit Rosie Yang on Unsplash

Create cool.

Cool outfit. Cool car you fixed up. Cool upholding the truth when someone was bad-mouthing your buddy. Cool fade away jumper.

Professional Posers like the Kardashians imitate cool. They are brittle and hollow while the cool you is agile and spontaneous. The cool you is in the zone and loves being loved.

Funny thing is for the real cool what acutally happens is you heat up your blood. In your blood lives your history, your initiative, your best and your worst. Cool means knowing the worst and focusing on your best.

To get to cool you draw on your personal history of struggle, of growing and learning, of visualizing and wanting, recalibrating after a defeat and of allowing yourself to be inspired. Cool comes once you put your vulnerable/yet confident/authentic self out there; living your life now – then you rest and your blood cools down. That’s when you bask in the glow of your cooling blood that loved the vigour of sincere human effort.

Man Cave


Man cave.

What is in it?  Cozy?  Messy?  Big enough just for one?  Does it have 2 wheels?

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Where is it?  Does anyone else even know it exists?  What do you do there (besides whatever you want)?  Is it social or for healing?  Do you connect your today with the previous and future you?

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How does it relate to your comfort zone? Is it an escape or reinforcement?
Is life for doing and your cave for being?  is it the shed out back, a canoe from your teenage years,  yoga, the barbecue (in January!)?

Can you make your man cave mobile so you never have to retreat from life or your marriage? So you can stay and figure things out through conversation.

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If you have a Man Cave that helps you regroup for a better tomorrow does that make you a cave man?


What does a man marry?

The wedding is just one day.  Vows, wedding dress, toasts, food, speeches, slideshow, dancing, relatives, a childhood friend, a colleague.

The actual marriage is when we marry ourselves with our spouse the rest of our marriage. Without being in any way unfaithful, a man actually marries varied forces on a constant basis to offer his wife on a constant basis for her to use as needed.

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How does he marry forces?

Using his vibrant power –

– using his capabilities to help, to lead and get satisfaction.

A man loves to accompany others in their success and be accompanied in theirs.

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What does he need to do this?:

A man needs a direction to shine his light as a man, a husband.

A man needs a higher purpose to rise above daily whims and challenges.


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What is a man’s reality from which to do all this?

It is a mans challenge to combine his abilities and responsibilities in a manner that he can learn from the experience and for the experience to be beneficial for everyone impacted.

Where does he find the internal leverage to receive his reality and improve it in some small way ?

A man is emotionally agile with ready resources that enable him to respond to life with spontaneity not violence.

Said another way:

A man is responsible to keep the embers hot in the fire for life through admiration of others, curiosity and resilience.

Taken to another level – 

Men need to foster their intrinsic male sensitivity.   This is done by marrying this man-fire with their answer to the urge to maintain and strengthen their energetic connections with the higher forces of growth.

Repeat when possible.

Share as you wish.

Memory Games

My dad’s 83 year old mind needs exercise. Yes he reads the actual paper, organizes his stuff and has a few phone calls in his day but other than that not much stimulation. My mom keeps their apartment in order, cooks and pays their bills.

So in order to keep his mind agile my mom has put a memory game out on the table for us to play. There are colourful disks with cartoon drawings of dolphins and cactus, beach ball and clown. A child’s memory game. It’s pattern recognition 101: Finding the matching image.


Photo by Cody Doherty on Unsplash

AI is pattern recognition that is so thorough it sucks the life out anything it is set upon. Specifically as we know: jobs.

Artificial intelligence is making many jobs obsolete while creating a handful of others. The loss and gain of jobs in itself is actually a pattern of industry ebb and flow as we have witnessed over the years. This as always will close some doors while opening others. However the real threat of AI is more the lives behind the loss of jobs than its impact on the economy.

There could well be the arrival one day of a pervading reality when many a man will wake up each morning feeling empty. Empty because someone steals your ability and drive to get stuff done!

Normally when your mind is deliciously challenged by life and work you wake up without an alarm in the mornings; perception loves you and you solve problems with alacrity. These life challenges can also cause stress. Hopefully it is more the kind of stress of finding solutions than the stress of not being able to locate ones resources for success.

This intertwining of success and struggles is what helps form our identity.


Photo by Christian Burri on Unsplash

So a man loses his sense of meaning when he wakes up and does not attack the day. Instead of him projecting himself into the new day – he stagnates. This is dangerous. This creates angry, fragile, insecure men. These men can easily become vehicles of violence. Especially using women as their physical or emotional punching bags.

So. To the authors of AI who design and manufacture your remarkable robots. To you who add an AI start up to your investment portfolio – do your homework. Be the person who accounts for the fallout. Be the man that the military should be before they send their sons and daughters to war. Know what you are asking the soul of your people to do. Bypassing your instinct and ignoring this need for meaning in daily life is irresponsible, rude and damaging.

You have the knowledge of the consequences of your actions. Your decisions are a reflection of your grasp of the beauty of human life and your response to the fragility that can undermine it.

And of course there is Another AI. The Authentic Intelligence. In other words the human based pattern recognition system called the soul…?! It’s an excellent investment. Perhaps the 2 AI systems can work hand in hand.

For some guys this is not important


Somehow with all the apps that are designed for convenience, for example a parking app to find an available street parking spot in the surrounding 6 blocks,  life seems to be more complicated now than ever before.  If we continually tell us this then it actually becomes true.  One of those temporary truths – but at least true for us in the moment.  Yes we have social media always tugging at your sleeve.  And there is also your phone constantly nudging you to steal your energy.  There is always something popping up.  If we are to get stuff done and learn or grow or wonder we need to resist the phone/internet/social media tentacles.  Resistance is not futile- Resistance is CRUCIAL!  Resist the fleeting to accept and digest you in the moment.


So make important things important!!



Things like your love of self whatever in the world that means – but give it some time.  If you repeat it without being interrupted by your phone then you receive some ideas.  You have to build resistance – so you have to repeat yourself – your petition for self love.

Things like your love of nature.

Things like your growing belief in your life passion(purpose …?).

Make a list in your notes on your phone.  On a recycled piece of paper to stuff in your wallet.




Label Yourself

LABEL = Love and be Loved 

Seek something to love in the other person – Offer them something to love.

Seek their positive and the quirky aspects, the puzzling or the endearing habits.

Offer your time, offer your accompaniment in this stage of life, offer your perception about growing and acceptance of what needs to be forgiven.

Make the higher more important than the lower as an engine to generate self love.



Photo by Hian Oliveira on Unsplash

Ego love.

Love the service that your ego provides to your higher development life.  The ego level of you needs approval and attention and to be included and feel important.  So you give it all those things.  But not at the expense of your ability to grow.  

You can do it.

You probably already are.  Just get better.


The Avenue of Cedar


How many times have I ordered a coffee or a burger and the minimum wage worker has not had a good attitude, a fake smile or even given me a ‘Hi, welcome to my low pay part time burger hell can I take your order!!’   Can you blame them?

The thing is they are obviously not happy at work.  That is not the fault of the people in their family waiting for them at the end of the day.  Likewise if their family life is a disaster then that is not my fault if I am just looking to grab a quick coffee and have a question or two.

But it happens to us all.  Things build up from all sides of life.  We can’t complain or speak up at work for fear of repercussions.   So we bring our frustration home.  Which is unfair to our spouse and children and pets.  So to keep us out of trouble and therapy or the bar, here are a few suggestions.  Using your mind to get you into a better space quickly you will walk through your front door and offer your family the real you – the real deal!

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The Avenue of Cedar – Whether you are stepping into the hallway from your office towards the elevator or from the elevator to your condo to walk down the hall to your home this is an excellent technique to decompress from your crazy day.

Picture the hallway lined with tall, verdant cedar trees.  Growing at various angles, thick with branches and home to many birds.  Breathe in the fresh air they generate.  Breathe out your ________________ (fill in the blank with your frustration, disappointment, anger, disdain)  .  Repeat.  Breathe in clean forest and breathe out daily refuse.  Make good notice of the bright green of the cedar leaves.  Know that they are full of life and they clean you of the static energy you have collected in your day.  Picture the Avenue of cedar.


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Daily Cascade – as you go down the elevator at lunch or the end of the day envision you are enveloped in a long, cascading waterfall. Feel the water refresh you as it sprays and sparkles. Breathe in the clean, charged air.  Imagine the swirling pool at the bottom and the moss covered rocks bright green in the rays of the sun.  Close your eyes and stay in the moment.  Breathe in again and … walk out of the elevator rejuvenated.

Let me know how it goes …