David De Francisco
Guest Writer
In 2013 I attended the Sterling Men’s Weekend,1 joined an in-person Point Program,2 and circled up with the men of the Old Crusty Bastards (OCB) division.3 When I left Mentor, Discover, Inspire (MDI) three years later, my completion was considered an honorable one. Unlike men who just bolt, leaving a hole in their teams and in the hearts of their men, I spoke with them about it. I didn’t just show up one day and say, “I’m out.”
Even so, the reasons I gave for leaving were BS, and I knew it. I tried to convince myself my excuses were valid but deep down, I knew they weren’t.
I had hoped to do a good enough sales job that the men would believe my reasons. As George Costanza once said, “It’s not a lie, if you believe it.” But I never truly believed it and those men didn’t either.
I remember one evening when Groden, OCB’s DC,4 and my teammates Francisco, Gjers, Kimura, and Camargo pulled me out of our meeting and said, “Hey De Francisco, you need to get your shit together.” They knew I was using.5 Gjers knew, and even stepped up to support me around that. Nonetheless, I ultimately made the decision to leave.
Well, then I was gone, out, and free to do all the reckless, self-destructive stuff my division had tried so hard to help me avoid.
I finally got clean in 2017. Two years later, a year after retiring, I sold my house and moved from my home town to one three hours away, far from any MDI team. I was left with no job, no friends, no team, and no purpose. I found myself lying on my couch, day after day, simply waiting to die – that literally was my context. I had thrown the vehicle of my life into park while traveling at freeway speeds.
Suddenly, due to Covid, my old division was meeting on Zoom, so I asked if I could join them. Hey presto! I was back in! I was so grateful. Those men saved me from so much. They asked me what I needed, I told them, and a man named McCarter got me into action during my very first meeting back. He held me accountable, and supported me around getting back into recovery work.
I was so excited to be back that I began meeting with two teams, and became the S1 – responsible for communications – for both. Life started to have meaning again, and I was no longer going it alone. Then Covid restrictions ended and the men went back to circling up in person. I was too far away for that but luckily one of MDI’s divisions, Atlas, was virtual, so I joined one of its teams.
I started as a guest and immediately got called out by a man for ‘team shopping.’ I chose that man, Schlosser, to take me through the onboarding process, and soon I joined his Core Team as S1 of the Atlas Division.
I knew I’d struggle – that’s why I took it on – but I never expected to be anywhere near as uncomfortable as I actually was. Still, as a man who always had to look good, I needed an uncomfortable role to learn a better way of being. While it was torturous at times – largely due to my crummy context – my second, a fellow named Pammett, and I nonetheless accomplished a great deal.
What I don’t want you to know is that, at the age of like 63, I sometimes found myself in tears over my countless unforced errors, and feeling like a complete dope in front of fifty or sixty men. Sometimes I felt completely humiliated. Still, that experience pretty much broke the self-inflicted fear of judgement I had carried my entire life. I say ‘self-inflicted’ because not a single man, not one, ever belittled me or did anything other than support me. Thank you Mm. Schlosser, Barber, Feerst, and a man named Kempner.
After completing the DS1 role, I became a member of MDI’s outreach team. I was also mentoring three men from my former division, taking some men through MDI’s training trogram (MTP); was chief of staff for one team, and S1 for two. A year prior to being out again, I was doing all kinds of volunteer work – for people. But it turned out I wasn’t doing any for God.
In what turned out to be an ironic twist, I had advocated booting a guest out of our team meeting because he was vocal about his religion. He was a Christian man, and open about his belief in God’s love for others. I told him I’d kick him off the team if he didn’t stop telling the men Jesus loved them. A Jewish teammate wasn’t having it, nor was I, and it’s just not how MDI teams operate. Men’s teams generally do not talk about politics, don’t discuss religion. If we ever touch on it at all, it is only in highly personal terms, not as points for discussion. Such can be incredibly divisive for a diverse team of men.
The man stopped meeting with the team soon after, yet I believe God put him in my life to help mentor me spiritually. Christianity had now become important for me, and I found myself in a similar position to the man I’d intended to boot. I too found that restriction difficult to manage, and I have too much respect for the men to violate those norms.
I did not outgrow MDI: I just couldn’t get everything I needed from MDI. Yet it helped bring me to a place where I am able to be used by God.
I began to understand: that is my highest calling. I had to make room and time for God, and that meant letting go of the rest. So, I made a spiritual pivot. I ‘completed’ in all my roles, then completed from MDI in the Spring of 2024 and, not knowing what was coming, or if I would ever return to men’s work, I embarked on a new and different journey.
When I left I was on a tremendous team, one of the best I’d ever been part of. We accomplished so much, and we cared for each other so deeply, and truly supported and loved each other. I didn’t leave because I was running from anything, nor was it because there was anything particularly wrong with the organization. I left simply to see what else God might have for me.
In my world view, there is The Faith, and then there is living by faith, operating with faith. My faith requires me to do the latter. The men of MDI have given me a tremendous gift without which I wouldn’t have the relationship I do with my higher power, Jesus Christ.
I learned from this organization that trust isn’t earned, trust is given. It’s a choice. Those worthy of my trust still may not have it. On the flip side, I might still trust someone who’s slimy as can be – probably to my detriment.
Without this lesson, my faith – or world view – would not work as well as it does. My relationship with God would basically be worthless to me and others, not to mention how it would make my higher power feel. MDI taught what it means to be a man, and how to live like a masculine one. I am grateful for the work this company of men is doing and has done in my life!
This is not to say that living a life of faith and trust in God, and being a member of MDI are mutually exclusive. I’m guessing there are many men who follow Christ or other religions, and manage to do so while remaining in the organization. But I can’t, not yet. My hope is that I’ll eventually be able to live in both worlds. There is much about being on a men’s team that I miss. That said, though life’s trials continue to mount, I’ve never been better, and I have both God and you men to thank for that.
To the men out there who may be thinking about quitting, as I did back in 2016. I suggest you ask yourself some questions I did not:
Am I not getting what I need because of how I’m showing up?
Am I leaving because I’m fearful of the challenges, the hard work?
Am I afraid of making and keeping commitments?
Am I just being selfish, or lazy?
If you decide to leave anyway, fine. But make sure you’re more honest as to why it’s not working than I was. If you’re anything like me, it’s probably showing up elsewhere in your life.
And so I was in, out, back in, and now out again. The lessons from MDI – and most of all the relationships – are still with me. I love and miss so many of you! Thank you for all you’ve given me, and allowed me to bring to you. I am truly honored and proud to have been part of MDI with so many outstanding men!
And maybe, someday, I will be in again.
God bless you!
- The Sterling Men’s Weekend is a program created and presented by the Sterling Institute of Relationship and is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, Legacy Magazine or Mentor, Discover, Inspire (MDI) ↩︎
- A ‘point program’ is a team formed for the express purpose of training men on the meaning and value of commitment and integrity. They are often formed for new members of Mentor, Discover, Inspire (MDI) ↩︎
- In the parlance of Mentor Discover Inspire, a ‘division’ is a unified cohort of men’s teams
↩︎ - D.C. is the Division Coordinator, the leader of an MDI cohort of unified teams ↩︎
- ‘Using’ is a reference to drug use and addiction ↩︎
