OUTSIDE THE VELVET CAGE

Looking forward to my own Death

Don't take this the wrong way. I love my life, and intend to stick around for a ton more. In fact, when I say, "I'm looking forward to my own death," I mean it in a good way. 

One of the many good thoughts that fuels the effort of a day for me is that one good day, it will finally be over. When I get weary, or bogged down, I think of my own death, smile, and I take another step toward the day I can finally go home. 

Today was one of those days. Not for any particular reason. Perhaps for many particular reasons. I awoke to my first thought which was, "What am I going to use to motivate getting up and going through another day?" Then I thought, "If I get up and go through the day, I'll be able to come back here and continue this sleeping." That made me happy, and so I got up.

And so I thought. Life is like this. At times. We fear death, or resist it, just like a child who doesn't want to go to bed. But today, when I felt weary and burdened, and each step seemed a bit heavier than the one before, and a minor hesitation stalled me into paralysis, I thought, "this isn't forever, and one day I'll die." A smile crept up the corners of my determined lips, and I took another step.

"And when I say I search for you, I mean I search for peace. I search for hope, I search for love, and one day for release." –– Mason Jennings

LEADERSHIP ON THE SET

Essence Leadership Turns Man Power Into Brain Power

I stood before the wall of script pages, storyboards, location photos, and an org chart outlaying the hierarchy of a production crew that was going to make its first feature with it's first-time director. I wondered, "Will I do okay? Can I do that job? Will I direct well and be a good leader?" It was late. It was dark. I stood there alone, generally afraid. Then a calm out of nowhere and I knew it was time to work.

Directing Bill's Gun Shop was the biggest challenge of my leadership career to date, and it was that way because of one main factor – it was important to me. Very important.

It was on the set of my first feature that I established a personal understanding of leadership – what I wanted, what I wanted it to be, and how I was going to accomplish it. It was my style, and it was part procedure, part code and part self-protection.

What I didn't quite realize is that it was smart. It was good leadership and I lead that way today.

The year was 2000. I had already run a successful company which got acquired by a big advertising agency. I'd already directed several other films, first as a teen filmmaker, then with my brother as an independent making commercials and corporate film, then as a creative director in interactive media. Now, back to feature film, but this time with a very modest yet still substantial a budget.

I didn't know how to lead. I'd just done what came naturally, which was a bumpy ride at best, but somewhere in the recesses of my mind, probably mostly subconsciously, I was doing the secret work on my own leadership and forming my own answers.

The answer came to me in a phrase: Essence Leadership

As a film director, you're bombarded with questions. Literally hundreds, many at one time, as Wardrobe, Art Department, Cinematographer, Producers, Financiers, Writers, Set-Design, Actors, Sound, Crew, and even Craft Services (food) want to know what this should look like, how you plan to accomplish a scene, and who wants what for breakfast.

It was an overwhelming task to direct that show, but at the same time it's no different from any other leadership. You have to make a choice – whether leadership is figuring everything out yourself or if it's finding a way to delegate without compromising your vision.

How can delegating be an extension of your vision? That answer is Essence Leadership.

What is Essence Leadership?

I discovered when I was filming that whatever I told someone to do, they would do. "It's good to be King," said Mickey Freeman, my Director of Photography. In a way, how can you not like that. On some level, I didn't.

A few years back, I was making an interactive entertainment product called Virtual Cop, and I noticed the same thing there. Its memory reminded me of why dutiful followership bugged me. Again, I like the loyalty, but my Assistant Director (AD) back then really captured it for me.

A props person asked me how I wanted some prop to be and I began describing what I was going for. I'd hoped for their input on how to answer the challenge so I wanted them to know my thinking. My AD said, "Dean, they don't want to figure it out. They want you to tell them what you want so they can do it."

It bugged me that with complicated problems, with brain power all around, you'd have just one person making all the decisions and have everyone else serve as automatons. Great for the ego-head, but dumb. How can you maximize the brainpower and have a unified, thinking crew?

There were so many decisions to be made, I would have plenty of "do this" and "do that" to keep my ego satisfied.

So I began leading by essence. A great example was a car we needed for a bounty hunter character to drive. We were in a pinch and the car options we were working on fell through and I needed to get the right car quickly. I really didn't have much time to invest in the hunt because we were preparing to shoot a complicated scene in a gun range using real and fake ammo and I needed this one off my plate. So I said, "You pick the make, you pick the color. I'd like it to be an older car, but I'm trying to sell 'motor-head' and macho. He's a bounty-hunter so he's going to want some speed but not a lot of flash to draw attention. Find the car that sells motor-head, power, but low flash."

The folks on the car hunt said, "Ahh. I get what you want," and they were off to solve the problem. I was told that they were excited and engaged to over-deliver for me. Why? Because I engaged them. They came back to me with polaroid photos of 3 options. I picked from that and they felt they'd contributed, yet I still picked the final car.

Later on, the Lead Man on Swing (swing gang is the set-dressing crew) came to me about how to set up the bad guy hideaway, which was a trailer. They initially came to me with questions that were really detailed. Like if you imagine a helicopter (which could fly high or low), their questions were on the pavement. "How do you want the room laid out? Would there be a TV? What kind of couch? How much of this? How many of those?" I didn't have time for that.

I took five minutes and talked about the essence of what I was going for. I kept my helicopter up pretty high and told them strategically what the scene was, what success was, what I was trying to sell visually, and handed them the scene to read. I told them I trusted their ideas and gave them creative license to interpret my requests. "I can see you know what I'm going for. You make the call! I trust your creativity," I would say.

I remember these guys kind of glowing with a combination of excitement and fear. I'd given them responsibility. They were honored and they rose to the challenge. Again, I heard from their Art Department head that I had so much commitment from the swing gang. They wanted to come through for me and they seriously over-delivered.

Essence Leadership is simple. It's all about giving away leadership to get more authority and loyalty to the cause. It's not a total answer, but it is a value-well that will never run dry.

The principles are simple (if you need the nemonic, I guess it spells Eezze so it's eezze to remember):

#1: Essence: Share the essence of what you want and let them figure out the details.
#2: Engagement: Relinquish authority to your followers and let them initiate the labor.
#3: Zone of No Compromise: Establish what you will not compromise on – the essence you're going for.
#4: Zone of Flexibility: Establish what details you will be flexible on – hopefully all as long as #3 is achieved.
#5: Expression of Trust: Dialogue until you feel you're on the same page, and then express your trust in their creativity and find a way to accomplish the task.

Leaving the set at the end of this shoot was a two-step process. First, I had to battle an endless line of goodbye hugs with everyone from actors to crew, producers, production assistants, and volunteer interns, nearly each one of whom told me in one way or another that this had been the experience they'd gotten into film to have.

Over an hour later, having achieved the ten feet of distance to my car, I returned to the dark production office, which was much like it was the night before shooting began. I found myself standing in the exact same spot and could feel my nervous energy from four or five weeks prior. I stood there with the pride of having commanded in a way that didn't feel like commanding at all. I sacrificed no level of vision, nor did I compromise my own authority. I simply benefited from a thinking team, all engaged loyally to me because we were all equal servants to a vision I let them help me visualize it. It began in my head, was shared and owned by the team, and today it exists in reality with a little "WB" on the box!

My own thoughts echoed in my head like a voice, asking, "Will I do okay? Can I do that job? Will I direct well and be a good leader?" I replied out loud, "You do fine," and I finally understood the calm that had come over me when I had stood there worrying before the shoot.

My thoughts spoke out to me again, from some part of my brain that must have been still holding onto the fear and self-doubt. First there was a sigh, and then a statement in my own voice, saying, "Thanks. That's all I needed to know."

IT'S CHANGING MEN, HALLELUJAH!

Interest In Emotional Balance on the Upswing for Male Audiences

For years now, my travels around the country have given me glimpses of different companies, cultures, industries, various people, and various struggles. One constant in my purview has been women changing or trying to change by reaching across the gender barriers to find ways to expand themselves and "fit in" (and do so authentically). Another constant is men staying pretty much the same, or at least not changing in that one way, looking anywhere but across the gender barriers, not expanding themselves, and not altering themselves in any way either to fit in better with women or help women fit in better with them.

For the record, I'm not saying men aren't trying. I'm saying they haven't been looking at changing themselves as a means to find any sort of new balance in corporate culture.

As a professional speaker who speaks mostly about emotions in leadership, presence, and presentation, I'm a rare male preacher of the soft skills, usually playing from the Yin playbook in a business universe of Yang strategy. I've met with literally hundreds of men who will hear about it, but honestly don't want to hear about it. By "it" I mean the "e" word – emotions.

Therefore, it was a surprise to stand before an audience of hundreds of Utility Workers in the Midwest Energy Association's (MEA) annual conference in Aimes Iowa at eight in the morning one day this past August, to find that something seems to be changing in the very fabric of manliness.

The situation was this. SagePresence was hired to do two back-to-back presentations to the MEA annual conference in Aimes Iowa, speaking on Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Presence. I expected a full house on Leadership Presence, but I was fully prepared to drive all day and rehearse all night to rise and shine with a pot-full of hotel coffee and present to a mass audience of 5 people, who would probably have been the team-spirited organizers of the event.

My first surprise is that the coffee was pretty good. But that was nothing compared to what was coming next. At 7:55, two brave men walked in and sat down (well, one of them left, but not right away). Then after farting around with the powerpoint, I looked up to see well over a hundred people filling the seats in the small auditorium.

Two things about these "people." First, they weren't just "people" – these people were men! Secondly, they weren't just men, they were "manly" men. These were energy and utility worker types. I saw flannel, and steel-toe boots, and I could just visualize hard-hats and utility belts. Some were more administrative and leaderly. But there was something about the collective as a whole that screamed of the "traditional man" category.

There were only two women in the audience, and I felt for them, suspecting them to be women who've had to learn to function as anomalies in their male-dominated industry.

So far, this is what I expected as an audience, only there were about a hundred more than I would expect at an 8:00 am presentation on emotions. And don't get me wrong, I'm not judging the audience, only noting the attendance as compared to expectation. And then it happened.

I was curious enough to ask the question point blank in my intro: "What in the world are 100 plus men in the utility area doing in an 8:00 am presentation about emotional intelligence? What brought you here?"

A man raises his hand. He was sturdy, kind, and blue-collar in presence, dress and dialect. "I'm trying to find a better emotional balance between my work life and my home life," the man said. I am seldom at a loss of words, but I chose to smile and look for another hand.

"I view emotions as the foundation and fabric of all my relationships, and I'm looking for anything I can get to gain a better understanding of how to build stronger emotional bonds with my teams and my clients," says the next.

I'm used to responses like this in women's conventions, but here? Again, I take another response, and I get, "I've noticed that the emotional state of my team has a huge amount to do with how well they interact with others, and how safe my team is on the field. One emotional swing can lead to a compromise in safety procedure and I want to learn how I can be more proactive about managing emotions on my team."

A forth: "I've realized when I meet people that the first relationship I form is on the emotion, then I get to know about the person second. The emotion side has a lot to say about how the conversation goes." This and flannel – I'm beside myself!

In ten years of presenting on emotions and leadership, I've never had a single man ask a question like that without some serious leading on my part. Was I in some sort of emotional Twilight Zone? Could the Energy Industry Workers be the next leaders of social change?

For many years I've seen women reaching across the gender barrier to learn what men had to offer them. After that presentation, I've found myself running through my mental logs of trainings and presentations to answer the question: "Are men evolving?"

I think the answer is "yes, they are" – socially, intuitively, business-wise and in their dealings with professional women. Don't get me wrong. We still have much distance to go, but we are actually going... somewhere!

I've spent a month talking about this very question with my partners. And I'm seeing it more and more, but I just hadn't had as big a sign to believe it. Men are finally joining women in looking across the gender gap and asking the question, "what can I learn from them that would give me an edge and help me expand myself?"

More and more men are satisfied enough with what they know about "Yang" and are looking for a deeper meaning by exploring their "Yin" side. It took me a couple presentations at the MEA to recognize that this subtle shift is turning the "women in a man's world" paradigm on it's back, and into "men and women crossing over to become complete together."

Expect updates on this phenomenon in the future, as I check my impression with more audiences. Either the energy industry is where our most advanced male attitudes lie, or it's just a sign of the times – that men are finally evolving to recognize what women recognized many years ago – we're not so different, women and men, but we're different enough to offer something worth sharing and similar enough to grow closer together by looking for it.

I can here the musical in my head. The man sings: "We can feel anything better than you can, we can feel anything better than you!" Woman: "No you can't!" Man: "Yes we can!" Woman: "No you can't!" Man: "Yes we can! Yes I can, yes I can, yes I can!"

This Collaboration is Killing Me: Part II: A New Process

I've been thinking about my 5 rules of collaboration, and I've discovered a process to further smooth collaboration for your consideration.

As with other processes I like (ala SagePresence philosophy) this process is simple, and is based on something you already do naturally. Once you recognize it, you'll be able to use it more intentionally.

The issue it addresses relates to a very positive collaboration I had last Thursday on a video project. My two partners and I shared ideas and tried to reach conclusions on a video training project we're shooting this coming week, and our meeting was about five hours long.

Both my partners have excellent ideas, and playing on that field looks a little bit like professional soccer – one team has the ball and it's working toward their goal, then upset, and suddenly the opposing team is heading with the ball in the opposite direction! But this isn't just a two-sided field. This field has three players and each player has numerous ideas (or goals), so it's like soccer on a three-sided field with numerous goals on each side.

Even more complicated, there's numerous balls and any player can add any number of balls at any time. So just when you have the ball, and a clear shot on your goal, another ball comes into play and draws the game in a whole new direction. All this from three smart team-players with desirable ideas!

Specifically, what came up for the group was a sort of agonizing stress that built because every time one person had an idea, the other two would have input, and each volley took a long time. Worse, each volley had the potential to divert the conversation in a particular direction. Worse yet, any two of the three of us could essentially form a temporary alliance and squash the other – and this was a good collaboration.

I found myself feeling threatened, as I'd discussed in my last entry on the subject, but this time I knew what the threat was caused by. It was the threat of either losing control, or of having a good idea shot down when it shouldn't be shot down.

Specifically, for me, it was that deep inside I knew that if I didn't have to contend with two of them at once, I had the ability to get one other person to walk the distance it would take to see my perspective. However the capability of any two of us to squelch any one of us was so apparent to me that I directly tied my collaborative stress to the fear of being overpowered.

Even though I knew I could convince either of them, my confidence that I would actually convince both of them was very low.

Additionally, when I found myself in the middle of the other two (when they were heated over a topic), I noticed I would either mediate, or join one of them, depending on how much time-pressure I felt and which point or perspective I believed in more.

So here's what I think goes on when three people collaborate:
– Three collaborators creates a time-anxiety.
– Three collaborators creates the potential for any two to overpower any individual.
– The potential to be overpowered puts all collaborators in a perpetual stress.
– When you're in the middle, you have to pick a side or mediate.

So the natural process remedy became clear to me:

COLLABORATIVE PROCESS FOR WORKING WITH THREE COLLABORATORS:

1) When three people have to collaborate, you should ideally "keep the helicopter very high," establishing the high-level goals, strategy, logistical considerations and challenges.

2) Once the lay of the land is understood, the group should select two of the three collaborators to meet as a subcommittee and do a one-on-one collaboration to figure out the details, "flying the helicopter lower and lower" until you can lick the pavement with your tongue! (That means, figure out the whole thing you're collaborating about.)

3) Once the subcommittee has a plan, they delegate one of the two of them to be the representative of the collaboration, and present one-on-one to the other team-member. If that leads to a consensus, you're done. If it does not, move to Step 4.

4) If the delegate of the subcommittee does not convince the third collaborator, then those two individuals are immediately the new subcommittee, and they collaborate until they reach an agreement.

They then select a representative (who in most cases should be the third collaborator who didn't accept the recommendation of the other two), who goes back to the other member of the subcommittee to present the recommendation of the new collaboration.

This process (three to define goals, two to collaborate, one of the two to present to the third, and those two to collaborate if unanimous agreement is not achieved) keeps all mid to low level collaboration in a one-to-one collaboration, yet all parties have equal say in the process.

This avoids feelings of being ganged up on, and it avoids the delicate mediator position for the one stuck in the middle. With that out of the way, there is far less potential that someone's going to feel betrayed and lose trust in the team.

I propose that we do this naturally. We often can sense one issue to be more volatile than another, and decide to take this one up one-on-one. Why not make a process out of it and avoid the frustration in the first place?

Dear Abby Singer: Two Heads are Better Than One, But This Collaboration is Killing Me!

Filmmaker Dean Hyers Tackles Life and Work Questions:
Dear Dean, collaboration is killing me. How can I work better with my partners?

A very good question: Is collaboration working together, or against, your creative partners? When it works, are they really working together at all, or is it nothing more than a segmentation of responsibility where people work independently on items that link together in the end?

Can people actually work and create together? Can a true collaboration without egos exist?

Right now, I've been proudly enduring a grueling summer of successfully frustrating collaborations. Successful because they're working to achieve a higher result, but frustrating because hurt-feelings, bruised egos, defensiveness, and territorialism weigh into the experience about as much as the thrill of the better result.

Today, the results are impressive, yet my batteries are weak because of the amount of energy that's required to collaborate. This issue is affecting SagePresence, my speaking career, my training efforts, and my film projects. I love my partners, but fear my ability to endure.

So I guess I'm writing myself this time. It's me with the question, and I'm going to hold myself to having my own answer. So here goes:

Dear Dean, don't worry. Your feelings are normal, and so are the frustrations your partners are feeling. But you said it yourself – "The results are impressive." Is that not half your answer right there? I hope so, because the tradeoff going the other way is disappointing.

Here's the rest of your answer, and please write me again if this doesn't do it.

The Five Laws of Successful Collaboration:

1) Respect Always: you must actively respect any partners in a collaboration. This means not only that you "theoretically" respect, but that you actively choose to feel the respect in the moment and embody it. If you say you respect, but you harbor resentment and frustration in the process, it won't work.

2) Zones of Responsibility and Input Everywhere Else: My hope in collaboration is that it can really become working together (beyond simply working solo on different aspects of the same project). But zones of higher authority must be established so that team-members are not in competition with each other. If we know our zones, we can have some measure of peace knowing that we have some measure of control, yet we can allow open input on the project as a whole.

3) Listen and Acknowledge First, then Fight the Good Fight Second: What I've observed blowing the lid off the can of collaborative whoop-ass is the launch into the battle before it's time for fighting. Hear your partners out completely, and restate their input, before doing battle with it. Actively understanding first needs to be a pattern. If it's not, the team member least prone to do battle will adopt a prevailing tendency to yield, and their frustrations will build up and explode above and beyond the call of duty.

4) Defend Each Collaborator's Right to Be Heard: In collaboration, you don't have the right to get your way, but you have the right to be heard and understood before you get shot down. Many amazing ideas never materialize because they weren't explored long enough to find their hidden value. Half the time, the contributor hasn't baked the idea long enough to be able to defend it fully, but that doesn't mean the idea won't prove valuable if fully baked.

Each collaborator should police that process and defend the underdog – be constantly on the lookout for a voice being squelched and defend it even if it isn't a perspective you like. You should do that because you believe in the process, but if the high road isn't calling you, do it selfishly – do it because fighting for others' fair consideration will translate into others defending you and your right for fair consideration.

5) Stay True to Yourself: Don't give in to group-think, which doesn't mean you always fight for your way. Collaboration is full of compromise, but so is life, and so is going solo. That said, don't squelch your own voice under peer pressure. Voice your decision to go with the group over yourself on this item, but be honest about your own perspective.

Decide what hill is worth dying on and fight for those items. Never compromise your own voice by pretending to agree when you don't – that will eat you up from the inside. Be honest, voice your truth, and then decide if you will stand your ground or fall in line – it's a choice. It's yours to make and once you make it you have to get behind it even if it is your choice to yield.

Remember: collaboration is a struggle to juggle between the group process you believe in and the mind that does the believing.

The right pattern of being heard and treated respectfully as a contributor will help each individual handle the pressure of collaborating. Even if you're shot down in the end, you will feel part of the process and be able to learn from your collaborative competitors.

Collaboration can exists and be sustained if the we respect, define zones, and listen first.

I have one more piece of wisdom on collaborating: when it gets difficult, there's usually an emotionally charged element of fear or a sense of threat. If it just isn't working, see if you can discuss who feels threatened and why. What is the nature of the threat and what does the person fear will happen if the threat is carried out? You might just be able to resolve or diminish the underlying issue that's causing the tension.

Best,

Abby

THE OCCASIONAL RANT – My Jeans Date Me

I remember being embarrassed by my dad when I was a teen because I thought he was so out of touch. He was all at once aware of it and very unconcerned about what me and my peers thought of him, and that troubled me.

Recently, in attempting to shop for a pair of jeans, I've discovered that side of myself.

I'm 43. I'm a dad. I'm image-conscious and have for some time (maybe the last 25 years) felt relatively hip. I don't feel particularly different from people in their 20s and 30s, and some people over 40 (my age bracket) seem like "grown ups" to me.

I was shopping for clothes in Boston after a back-to-back presentation-athon at Best Buy's women's leadership forum (WOLF) a couple days ago and I rather desperately need a pair of jeans.

My Dean Hyers uniform (which I still think is hip) is corporate casual with a touch of "film-guy" without looking like a "Hollywood Hot Tub Talker." I wear a sport-jacket, a black T-shirt, a couple funky bracelets, a cool watch, black jeans (or sometimes blue), and either black or brown Uggs (clog-style), cowboy boots, or these sort of femmy sandles that my partner Pete always makes fun of.

A clean, nice pair of jeans are pivotal to that dressed up / casual look, and I need to replace my aging pairs, which I've been trying to do for a couple months. But everywhere I go, the "new" jeans in stores look worse than the jeans I'm trying to replace! Mine are getting holes, and are starting to look faded and dingy for a business setting.

New jeans look horrible! They sport a dingy, soily-oily look and many look like they've been peed on, spit on, or dripped on, with holes and frayed areas worse than the ones I'm replacing. So I stand there on in the store, trying on jeans that look older than the ones I'm trying to replace, and even though they may look fine on some college guy at a bar, they don't work for me at work. And I'm starting to say something about it to the store clerks.

I walk in and say, "I'm looking for new jeans that look newer, cleaner, less faded and less holy than the ones I'm replacing." Time after time, there's interest, a discussion, a showcase of their best, and I find myself pondering how I'd look in a $100 pair of the jeans I already have (if you were to throw them down on a riding stable and trot horses over them for a couple days).

After complaining about it a while (and looking in maybe 10 quality stores over several months), I noticed my wife and kids keep their distance from me when I shop They are embarrassed by how vocal I am about my dilemma, and now my kids and even my wife complain that I'm out of touch and old!

That really puts me in my father's shoes.

At the same time, I realized that I am finally secure enough in who I am that I don't fear what others think nearly as much as I had most of my life – not nearly enough to have the common decency to conform, nor to stay quiet about it. And there it is – another milestone.

I recognize now that I am proud of my dad retroactively for his own conviction. I'm glad he didn't want to bend for me when I was a teenage punk judging him.

Like him, I stand a touch annoyed about change and the times. But of course in my case, the problem is self-correcting. Either I find a place with my old jeans (the Calvin Cleans I love), or the longer I'm unsuccessful, the more hip and "in touch" I'll become as my current jeans degrade me back into fashion.

I'll just tell the companies who pay me to speak to their teams that I paid a lot for these jeans and heck if anyone's going to try to get in the way of me and fashion.

Dear Abby Singer: How do I make a successful marriage?

Filmmaker Dean Hyers Tackles Life Questions:>
I was speaking in LA at a convention for screenwriters. My session was about "stage presence" for writers when they're pitching their movie ideas. One night, at the hotel bar, a met a super couple who both worked in the film industry. They had a fantastic "couple's glow" about them, and they had the vibe of a good thing happening. But they were worried about their future and they both came from families who had divorced. We spoke of marriage, and I mentioned that I was about to have my 20th wedding anniversary (this September, in fact) and they said, "20 years, and you're still passionate, and in love! What's the secret?"

One of the fortunate aspects of my life has been my marriage. It's not been easy, but in the words of my friend and writing partner Bill True, it's been way worth it. There have been loads of struggles in a marriage to a man who insists on living outside the velvet cage of safety and comfort, yet the fact remains that 20 years of marriage (and nearly 21 years of being together), my wife Kim and I are great friends, fantastic life partners and very passionately still in love. There's a ton I could say about marriage, but when the question of "what's the secret" was asked me, the answer came to me like a bolt of lightning as a five step secret.

So here they are: the Five Tips to a Lasting Marriage. Also, at the bottom, is an activity or practice that will enhance marriage tremendously. (I use the term marriage, but I honestly don't think it really matters whether a couple is actually married or not. It's the same to me, because marriage is just a formal acknowledgment of the loving commitment. If the loving commitment is there, then marriage is neither to be considered "necessary" nor should the formality be feared or resisted.)

THE FIVE STEPS

1) Fall in love with who they really are (not who you fantasize them to be or wish them to be): It may take years to really know who they are. Your sign will be your excitement over some of the things that have been previously driving you crazy. When you bond with those things, you're getting closer!

2) Commit to "falling in love" THE ACTIVITY" beyond "falling in love: the reaction." Committing to love the verb is an amazing step, shifting from what you lovingly get to what you lovingly give. You'll find that it's just as powerful and just as authentic. A painter is proud of the passion he generated to create from. Falling in love, the verb, is creating, and creating is more worthy than simply consuming.

3) Unwaveringly commit to your own authentic self, path and purpose... even if it looks like it may be a negative to the relationship. "Momentary compromise is okay, but never allow the relationship to take you off your own course. Denying self (sacrificing yourself for the love of him or her) is not a gift to your relationship – it may provide immediate benefits and may serve to pacify a problem, but ultimately the short-term fix will be like a bandaid on cancer, unable to heal the growing hole you create in your soul. Denial of personal authenticity will come around full-circle to punish the person you were "changing for" with a lifetime of resentment. Allow your spouse to have whatever problems they have with you, but recognize that their problems are their problems. Honor them with the respect but do not make their problems your problems.

Eventually, you will discover that you came together BECAUSE of who you authentically are. They were drawn to you because (in the words of Bill True) "you are the antidote and serum that heals the one you love." They were drawn to you as the remedy to their soul as you were drawn to them. If you change, even if you do it for them, you are changing the chemistry of the antidote, and the relationship will die. If you remain true to yourself, even if it seems to be hurting them, you will eventually heal them (as they will you). The best gift you could give them is the healing power of your authentic self. This is why they say, "you have to love yourself first." Because only your authentic soul, self, path and purpose, can help the person you love. They instinctively knew it and that's why they were drawn to you in the first place. It seems selfish at times, but know better. The only long-term way to help others it to complete your own development.

4) Unwaveringly commit to foster your spouce's quest for his or her own authentic self, path, and purpose. For all the same reasons as #3 above, you must foster your spouse's quest to find who he or she truly is. Believe in them. Be a bouncing platform for them. Allow them to find their orbit and accept what affect their attempts to navigate, course-correct, and find their compass pulse, may have on you. There are times when you will see that they are not reading their own internal compass and you can help them get their bearings. Deep inside, they know what they must be, and just as they may at times want to deny you of following your quest, it is at those times above all that they are not following theirs. I recommend that you don't take anywhere near the same "active" commitment to their quest as you do toward your own. I suggest you are active in your own pursuit of truth, and passively, patiently supportive and fostering of their pursuit of their purpose. It is theirs to find, there's to define, theirs to seize. You can not give it to them, they must take it themselves.

(The below is preamble to #5)

There will be times where the relationship seems harder than is worth it... maybe carrying with it a fundamentally unresolvable issue that sits over your head like a dark cloud for days or months or years. Whatever that issue is, it can remain like a wedge between you for indefinite periods of time, always in the air and always pricking every moment like a thorn. Because of that thorn, every argument runs the risk of becoming that argument. If you complain about your spouse being late, the discussion could avalanche into an argument about that issue. If you left your clothes on the floor in the bathroom, bringing that up will snowball into that argument. Anything you talk about runs the risk of being sucked over to the black hole of that thorny issue. You will begin talking less and sharing less for fear that anything you say might become a trap door to that argument. You find yourself orbiting farther apart from usual. You feel like "roommates" instead of lovers. At some point you may think that another relationship choice might have been so much easier and you will wish that instead of all these headaches, you could just have a smoother, easier relationship. It would have been so much easier if I would have just stayed with that other relationship. What if I would have picked differently... better! What if I make a change. I could find someone better.

No you couldn't, which brings us to #5:

5) Trust and recognize that a point will come where you will look back and realize that you could never possibly afford to give up the hard times you struggle through because the struggles between you will indeed have made you. You will recognize how shallow a goal it would be to have an easy life, with plenty of smooth sailing. How shallow the bonds formed in eternal bliss. Happiness is easy – fun, but trite. Joy and brightness are a great foundation, but true strength is forged in what we struggle through together. It is through lifting heavy things that our muscles become strong. If you put a man in space, in weightlessness, they will become weak in only a few months unable to support their own weight when they return to earth... unless they were working hard physically to maintain their strength. You will hit a point where you look back and grasp the value of endurance.

Joy is our desire, but sadness provides our depth, and anger our motivation. Joy alone is empty without the other two, and together, your joys, your rage, and your sadness will become your strength. If you were given the chance to go back and make it easier, you wouldn't take it because you would be unable to fathom how you could possibly be the strong relationship you are without the hard times that helped you evolve to your higher place.

A PRACTICE TO BUILD AN EVER-STRONGER MARRIAGE

Because of this, there is an activity you can practice that will build your endurance for the ups and downs of marriage. As you walk through your day, look around you (literally at anything and everything that is in your view). It may be a loved one, or a person at work. It may be a discarded piece of cardboard or an oddly-painted building. It may be a homeless person or a woman with her child. It may be a bug or a dog. It might be someone giving you directions, or it might be a person telling you that you screwed up.

Whatever is in front of you, ask yourself "what can I appreciate about this person, thing, or situation." By asking the question, you will immediately discover that there is an answer. It might be deep or superficial – no matter. Practice actively appreciating (on command) whatever is in front of you for some reason. If you practice this, here an there, throughout your day, you will begin to recognize how much value everything provides to the world around it. The beauty of a tree is obvious in the value of its image and its shade, not to mention the home it makes for animals and insects and the food-source it represents. But even litter provides value to the clean-up crew who makes their living picking it up. And a broken car window may sadden you, but it also provides value to the workers at the body shop who repair it, and the act of vandalism justifies the insurance premiums which simultaneously benefit the person who's window got broken and the insurance company itself. A crabby co-worker allows you to stand out in comparison and their frustration may bring an unresolved issue to the forefront for resolve.

Practice appreciating, then notice how much stronger your love for your spouse flows between you as you look them deeply in the eyes and recognize how much you appreciate them. And when you argue, fine, but specifically then, look into the eyes of your angry loved-one and ask yourself, "what can I appreciate right now about the love of my life and the anger they are experiencing right now, at me?" The answer will come to you in the moment of asking, and the appreciation for them at this difficult time will help you ride that moment to a more stable shore that benefits you both.

Best,

Dean

Dear Abby Singer: Life Insights from a Filmmaker?

There's always been a "Dear Abby" side of my life.

I'm not exactly sure why I ended up with this dubious gift/burden, but since I was a child, people have sought me out for insights and advice. As an adult, I meet someone and suddenly it's five hours later and they've just spilled their deepest treasures and secrets, and I've handled those gifts gingerly and returned them unbroken. There's often a brief panic on their part – "why did I just share things I've never shared with my husband to this man I just met?" Time proves their instinct to share with me reliable, as I seem to be able to give people the one single, specific thing they needed right now.

I've joked most of my life that I should write a Dear Abby column. The most I would do (unless you, reader, chooses to ask me a specific question) is share insights that seem to apply to anyone and everyone based on a question someone asked me which I've answered powerfully. Obviously, I will compromise no individual's secrets. But many of the questions one person asks will apply to thousands.

What I like about this gift/burden is the strange "tapping the universe" feeling I get when someone comes to me this way, be it at a coffee shop, on a job, one night at a bar, or on the train. It's one of my favorite feelings. Typically, I've had little thought about the subject prior. But when asked, a multi-stepped "answer" flashes in my head, and if it has the right "feeling" associated with it, I know I have what they need. And there's a certain feeling I associate with having my head in the right place, which is a warm, good feeling that says to me that I'm doing this for them and not for my own self aggrandizement. Time has shown me that those two feelings coupled with that flash, have helped people reliably. So I share when I can.

Why Abby Singer?

I thought a good heading for these types of entries would be "Dear Abby Singer." Obviously, it's a play on Dear Abby. But there was a famous German filmmaker named Abby Singer, who's famous for having gotten to what he thought was the "martini shot" in a movie he was shooting (the martini shot is the final shot before wrapping a movie) and calling out, "this is the martini," only to require one more shot after that before the real martini shot. When I was directing my film, I got to the last shot in the film before releasing the cast and crew, and I whispered to my Assistant Director, Dave Halls, "Here we are. Can you believe it? This is the last shot of an excellent adventure," and Dave immediately hollered, "This is the Abby Singer everyone!" We did the shot, and I'd never heard the term myself before, but sure enough, I had one more tweak and we had to shoot it again. So the Abby Singer is the one shot before the final shot in the movie.

I think that's a good term for any insights or advice I might offer on a life topic. Yeah, I've got a psychology degree, but what do I know? My advice should be the advice before the real adviser – you.

So when you see a heading in my blog called, Dear Abby Singer, that's me offering advice on life and living. I have access to a strange wisdom which exceeds my experience. I had it since I was very little. I remember advising my mom when her mother died, on how to deal with it. It was clearly present from a very early age.

There are times when I think I was born backwards – like Merlin. My dad told me I was born with some sort of built-in wisdom that other people take their whole lives to develop, and I just have it. But it seems that some of the simple, life basics that anyone needs to survive are the ones that I'm still stuck on, lost at the beginning. In the end, I'll finally gain the basics that others learn in grade-school and in their teens, while benefiting my whole life on a certain age-old wisdom that many adults I speak to and train are still trying to grasp.

Perhaps in the end, we can all together find balance together.