A few years ago, three teenagers in masks tried to grab me on a street in Lebanon. I put the big one down. When men interrogated me about why I was there, I told them the truth. When I walked into a Hezbollah camp by accident and had an AK-47 pointed at my head, I smiled and said hi.

A year before that, I could not even speak up in my own marriage.

This is the first episode of a new series called On Becoming a Man, Smalley Style. It is built from a letter I wrote to my son David after he completed Army boot camp. Not a "congrats on graduating" letter. A commissioning. A father telling his son what he believes it means to be a man. Not the cultural version. Not the church version. The Smalley version, built from ashes.

This episode is about the first principle: reject passivity. And I am going to be honest with you about how passivity almost killed me. Not quickly. Slowly. From the inside out. While I smiled on the outside.

If you are a man who knows something needs to change and you keep choosing silence instead, this one is for you. If you love a man like that, this one might help you understand why.

Text me at (303) 435-2630 or visit https://www.smalleyinstitute.com