My First Weekend Experience
January 2007. How can I ever forget. It was f'ing life changing for me. I remember back in 2006, I had a lot going on. I got married and was buying my house, and I had a full time job and a workout and diet routine. How in the hell did I have time to say yes to a weekend?
I was working for Shell, in Houston, at the time. My boss reached out to me and asked me to do a men's weekend. The truth is, I was surprised that he asked and I had zero interest. Why did I need a weekend, with a bunch of men who I didn't even know. Did my boss not realize that I was highly educated, had read nearly 60 books in the past couple of years, read the Bible cover to cover and so on? No thank you. LOL, boy was I wrong.
Well, surprisingly, he asked me again. And, like last time, I figured out a way to not give him a 'yes'. I'm sure I said something like "I'll consider it." Well, at some point later, he asked me a third time. Crap. This was my boss. I had never said "no" to an authority figure. So, I said "what the hell."
I went on the New Warrior Training Adventure, from Mankind Project Int'l. It changed my freaked' life! It was the single most powerful and effective thing I had ever done. Strong men, with intention, met me where I was. They pushed the shit out of me. They were with me when I yelled, when I shoved, and when I cried.
They allowed God to work through them, to get to me in a big way. I was healed from a recurring night mare that I had been having. I was fixed man. I was nowhere near complete, but the awakening took a huge step forward for me.
It was on this weekend that I learned to see a man for a man. Regardless. Gay or straight, black or white, I saw these men, as men, in a way that I had never seen men before. I saw their struggles - every man on that weekend. And I saw tears of joy and transformation. Corporate D&I training - what a load of bull. If you want real inclusion, do a weekend where all labels are stripped away, and a man is just a man - created in the image of God.
Post weekend, I stayed involved. I was hooked. I had a mission to get 1 million men onto the weekend. I want back and did more weekends - as a student and a teacher. Later I helped facilitate the weekends. I was involved in both MKP and I did the Richard Rhor weekend. Both were raw and real.
I sat with groups that coached and mentored men. I was so blessed, looking back, to be alongside (and trained by) some of the best coaches in the world. Men who I'll forever be grateful for.
MKP, unfortunately, lost most of it's Chirstian men, and became another D&I platform, in my opinion. Sadly, it became another place were a "white" whatever the f that means for a Sicilian/Cajun French/Texan - conservative, straight man who loves God & Christ. So, I ultimately left them behind - but I didn't leave behind all the 'gold' that I got.
What the MKP weekend, and the Rhor weekend, did very, very well was to go deep. Real and raw, with wonderful processes to help men get what they needed - miracles (dare I call it that)?
So, after ongoing nudges from God and finally a boot in the ass, I contacted a handful of the strongest (Thumos) men I knew, and we did our first (pilot) weekend, in October 2020. It was beyond successful. It was life changing.
Our pilot was now proven. To me, it was so simple. All I had to do is accept the talent (seeing what men need and helping them get their insight) and the experience that other men blessed me with.
The Thumos Weekend Experience is the MMA of weekends. It's not just boxing, karate, or wrestling. It's the best from each (each weekend I've been on), and it's void of the less impactful stuff. Men only have 48 hours to invest, away from their families, so it must be very direct and meaningful. And it is.
So, that's the weekend story - for me and for Thumos. The Inner Circle Zoom calls are great. The provide weekly resets and insights. But, 50 Zoom calls do not equal one weekend experience. You can't read and podcast your way into a powerful experience. Experience, in my mind = doing + feeling. Experience is the fast track to growth and potential true transformation.
The weekend is designed to break a man open. To get him awake. It's up to him (it's up to me) to stay awake. That's our work. It's that simple.
Bringing out the best in each other - over and over - that's what we are doing. We are doing it for each other as brothers, for our wives, for our kids, for our moms and dads. We are doing it to changing generations and to change destinies. God loves us doing this work. He told me so. Aho!