I'm 53. This is my first book.

Ten years ago I'd never have guessed the subject would be masculinity.

I spent about thirty years in business and leadership. I was good at it. I kept my head down, I provided, and I told myself that was enough.

A rough stretch showed me it wasn't. At least not the way I'd been doing it.

Here's the moment it turned. First session with a therapist, and she asked me to describe my daughters. I gave her the record — titles, times, a scholarship, a work ethic I was proud of. She let me finish, then asked me to describe their essence.

I had nothing.

Thirty years of reading people for a living, and I went quiet on the three who matter most. I could have given a full account of every deal I'd ever worked. I could not give two sentences about who my own children actually were.

So I built a map, the way I'd build anything, because it was the only tool I had. Seven levels. Five arenas. Then I tested it on myself for several years, and once in front of a room of fifteen men in a clearing in Utah who told me it changed something.

That became the book.

I'm not writing as a man who figured it out. I'm still learning, still growing, still seeking. I'm a few steps down a road you might also be on, and the whole reason for writing any of it down is that I'd rather you didn't need the rough stretch I needed.