Chris Christopher
President
Mentor Discover Inspire
Doug is alive and well. In case you don’t remember him, Doug is every man.
This year, your board, and your international core team affirmed that seeking out and enrolling Doug is central to our mission. Leading Doug to MDI, and setting him off on his personal journey to mature masculinity, is the greatest gift we can offer him.
This month’s magazine is focused on loneliness – specifically on lonely men. Over my twenty-eight years in MDI I’ve encountered an incredible number of men at MDI events who say, in essence, “I haven’t been with men like this in years! I forgot how great it feels just to be with men.”
There are tons of lonely men out there, call them lonely Dougs. Sure, there are other Dougs, but lonely Dougs are the kind of men who will embrace Doug’s Journey – if we, the men of MDI, find the courage to ask them to meet with us.
How great is it that we can lead lonely Doug on a journey to become masculine leader Doug? We can, of course, do the same for lost -in-my-marriage Doug, struggling-dad Doug, wasting-my-time Doug and, well, all the other Dougs out there who could benefit from MDI. In other words: all of them.
On February 12th, MDI is holding a town hall meeting. In it we will dive a little deeper into Doug and Doug’s Journey. Your leadership – the board and the international core team – has embraced that notion that Doug’s first step should be an immersion weekend in mature masculinity: a deep dive into the power men experience being in relationship with other men. And that is a job for The Art of Masculinity (TAOM) weekend.
TAOM has been delivered nearly twenty times over the past 10 years, and hundreds of men – many of them Dougs – have attended. Their lives began to change immediately. And those who subsequently joined men’s teams have undergone the same types of transformation so many MDI men have seen in their own lives.
In 2026 we will have many events for Doug to attend, followed by Open Houses where Doug can be enrolled into attending The Art of Masculinity. We want Doug to come face to face with his barriers, to see whether or not he’s ready to take a huge step.
For lonely Doug, this will be the opportunity to jump back into having men in his life. Other Dougs will be set up to take on whatever challenges are in front of them.
Currently, there are two TAOMs on the schedule: one outside Atlanta, May 1-3; and another in northern California, June 19-21. There will be at least one more in the fall. Now, right now, is a great time to identify all the Dougs you know, and to develop a plan to reach out to them.
As excited as we are to have TAOM as the opportunity for Doug to start his journey, we are also committed to ensuring the rest of the journey is worth taking. At our January meeting, your international and regional leaders examined the arc of that journey in all its components: TAOM: a new version of the Point Program; then on to join a great team; the Membership Training Program (MTP); plenty of leadership positions to stretch him and – when Doug is ready – our signature Legacy Discovery (LD) weekend.
The promise for Doug is fulfillment of the MDI Mission: to have greatness caused in him; being mentored to live with excellence; and development into a mature masculine leader. Our commitment to Doug is our own striving for excellence in everything MDI does and that can only happen when each MDI man makes that same commitment to excellence. Rather than me telling the whole story now, I ask that you commit to attending the All Hands Town Hall meeting February 12th at 9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific. And for our Asian and European members, well, look it up! You will learn much more about how we all will reach out to Doug and the journey we’ll offer him to mature masculine leadership.
Thanks, and I’ll see you all there!
