Craig Rempel
Guest Writer
We were passing Ikea on our way home when a call came in from an unknown number. I thought about not answering, but decided to take a chance.
The caller was a man wanting to talk about an Instagram ad I had interacted with from an organization called Mentor, Discover, Inspire, or MDI. I didn’t share much on that call, but I decided to call him back later so I could talk privately. That was in June of 2023 and I felt like I was onto something good.
I was a nice guy, working hard to make those around me happy. But I was disconnected from myself. I would, essentially, fill whatever role the room I was in needed at the time. I hadn’t noticed that there weren’t many men in my life that I truly admired. Sure, some had aspects I respected – and they were good men. Yet they didn’t inspire me to be a better man. They weren’t interested in giving feedback, or in receiving it.
I, on the other hand, had been focused for years on being the best man I could be, but I was going through a period of turmoil. I had stepped out of a marriage and said yes to a number of invitations I knew better than to accept. All that led to a reckoning: I had to examine how I’d been showing up in my life. It was clear that such a reckoning was something I couldn’t do alone. I’d entered therapy but that hadn’t moved the needle. A couple of insights, sure, but nothing that truly propelled my life forward or inspired me.
At the time, I was working 2nd shift as a supervisor in a Winnipeg distribution centre. No in-person MDI team was operating in Manitoba at the time so the only route available was an online team, in a virtual Division called Atlas.
At the end of that first meeting, on a Sunday morning with a team called Path Pavers, I was asked if I’d be returning. The meeting had been unlike anything within my experience. I’d never done group therapy, had never been around a group of men who were so invested in each other’s lives. I was not at all comfortable. But as with several other times in my life, there was a deeper ‘knowing’ that this was something worth leaning into.
I reviewed the mission of the organization which was, “to cause greatness, by mentoring men to live excellence, and as mature masculine leaders, create successful families, careers and communities.” Holy shit! I thought. If I can’t get behind that, then what the hell is wrong with me?
Yes, yes I would be returning.
Soon, I was in the MDI Membership Training Program (MTP) and parts of it required talking to more and more men. I began to feel more confident, stronger, supported by new men, and as the conversations deepened I noticed a pattern: many men had, like me, found the organization through a period of turmoil. Some of their circumstances made mine feel insignificant. Finally! I was in conversations beyond just, hey, how about those Jets!? These men were talking about life. I was learning from them. I was inspired. It was exactly what I needed.
I was scared as hell. Being in relationship with men and having these kinds of conversations was completely foreign. But I learned that so many men were just like me. They had carried their challenges privately and now they were sharing them with a team of men who were invested in each others’ greatness.
I saw leadership in action – outside my workplace. I saw men taking ownership, men challenging one another, confronting their shadows. I got to learn through their shared experiences. I now had a community of men at my fingertips whose perspectives I could learn from, and with whom I could share my own. Many were older men, who had made the same mistakes I was now making. I had, and still have, so much to gain from them.
Soon, I grew more confident in my own perspectives, and began to release my people-pleasing, nice-guy tendencies. In short: I began to find my voice – my truth. I learned the value of commitment and leaned into my growth as a man.
At some point I heard about something the men called Legacy Discovery,1 a weekend experience some of my men called ‘life-changing.’ Well, I could use some of that! I remember signing up and, for the first time in a long time, feeling like I was doing something for myself. The experience was life-changing. The clarity I had when returning was profound. The brotherhood was amazing, formed with men who had been complete strangers just days earlier. I wasn’t the same man coming back and it was noticeable. A shift was about to occur.
The coming months were tumultuous. My marriage ended. I sold my house and moved into a new place. There was a promotion at work, and I was placed on a new men’s team as a result of the shuffle.2 The shuffle? Yeah, you could say that. It felt as though my whole life was being shuffled.
The LD had given me a sense of what it must be like for men on in-person teams. Much of it happened with men circled up around a fire. I felt first-hand the power of men aligned and invested in each other. Closing that weekend with the men I had worked so hard with, both emotionally and physically, was powerful.
I’ve always loved being around a fire. It’s a great place to gather, share a laugh, or have an important talk. Conversations flow around a fire and looking a man in the eye as he shared his pain… that was different from what I had experienced online. I shared my own pain that weekend, and went deeper than I had so far done with my own team.
But the reality is, the in-person experience isn’t available everywhere. Atlas is.
It offers perspectives from all over the world. Atlas teams meet across fifteen time zones, have meeting times to suit almost any schedule, and use breakout rooms that can truly change the dynamic of a meeting.
It turns out I wasn’t the only man in Winnipeg who signed up through that Instagram ad. The Atlas division now has eight men in that area – enough for a team. These men are my brothers, and I look forward to the day when the Winnipeg men are gathered around a fire as an in-person team. But Atlas made it possible.
I don’t think one format is better than the other – just different. Some men work on computers all day, and it’s the last thing they want to do in the evening. It’s too much screen time, they say, and I get it. But for me, the way I show up at work is not the same as how I show up in my team meeting. More time on the screen, if it’s with my men, is no hardship.
However we meet, whether online or in person, what we do gives a man energy, strength he can pour back into his life, his relationships, and his community. Men truly committed to each other and to this work are powerful, and that serves the world – at a time when the world needs serving
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1 Legacy Discovery is a weekend program offered and operated by Mentor, Discover, Inspire (MDI)
2 The shuffle was a reassigning of men to knew teams across the ‘division’ – a number of teams that work collectively
