I got fired last week.

They actually called it a pivot.

But let’s be clear. This wasn’t a pivot. A pivot is when you adjust the program, shift the dates, or tweak the content. None of that happened.

This was simply firing me.

I had been hired by the CEO of Modern Elder Academy (MEA), Derek Gehl, to conduct what was going to be their first all midlife male workshop.

I’ll also be honest about something else:

Even when we were putting the program together, I had a sense it may not work.

The MEA audience is about seventy percent women. And of the thirty percent who are men, I wasn’t convinced they were exactly the kind of guys I normally work with and appeal to. But men deserve something that is their own. A place where they can talk openly, honestly and authentically with other men going through the same things at the same stage of life. That’s why I was excited to try to put together this workshop with Derek, because it felt like he was trying to reach a different kind of guy than they normally reach.

In order to do that, the event had to be designed as a Midlife Male event, created by midlife men, for midlife men.

However, I need to explain something here, because apparently this needs explaining.

Being for men does not mean we are against women. I love women. I support women. I’m married to an incredible woman. I raised two sons with her.  I work with incredible women and respect women.

And I think it’s great that women are having their own events and experiences at Modern Elder Academy and everywhere else in the world. I wouldn’t expect to be invited to those any more than I would think it’s appropriate for me to use the women’s bathroom, locker room, or compete in women’s sports.

Men having things that are their own should not be controversial. Men having their own platform to write from their perspective should not be controversial.

Apparently it was.

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The reason the CEO gave me for cancelling the event was that he was getting a lot of backlash from the women of MEA for something I wrote.

So I asked him, “Which column was causing issues?”

He told me that my article titled “Why Is It Always the Guy’s Fault?” bothered a number of women at his company. My first thought was, “Really? This one? Out of everything I’ve written?”

Now that I’ve had a week to reflect on this and look back, the bigger lesson for me has nothing to do with them.

It has to do with something I ignored: my gut.

From the beginning, this collaboration wasn’t a “Hell yes!” for me.

And when something isn’t a hell yes, it should be a hell no. Most of us in midlife know that feeling immediately. The problem is we sometimes talk ourselves out of it.

Misalignment almost always shows up early.

We often override instinct because an opportunity looks good, the money is good, the partner is prestigious and our ego likes the association.

The mistake wasn’t getting cancelled, it was ignoring the signal in the first place.

Midlife men have decades of pattern recognition and our instincts are rarely wrong.

We’ve lived long enough to recognize the feeling. But every now and then we talk ourselves into something anyway. We rationalize it. We convince ourselves it might work. We tell ourselves we’ll figure it out.

That’s on me.

But instead of complaining about it, I picked up the phone and called the event director in Miami for a conference I had previously turned down because I was booked for the MEA event.

I said, “Hey, I just had my previous event cancelled. Here’s why, in full transparency. Are you still interested in having me speak?”

He didn’t hesitate.

He said “yes”.

And that told me everything I needed to know.

One of the most valuable lessons you learn as you get older is that you don’t need everyone to like you. You don’t need every room to understand you.

You just need to be in the rooms where you are wanted.

In Health, 

 

Greg Scheinman

Founder, Midlife Male

Husband. Father. Entrepreneur. Coach.

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