A few years ago I went to a strip club with David Lee Roth.
He’s a friend of a friend.
I want you to imagine your own version of this scenario. Beautiful girls. Jack Daniels. Flashing lights. Loud music. Revisit the videos for “Panama” and “Yankee Rose” if you need inspiration.
And for a moment spare me the judgements you may have about strip clubs in general. Cool? Cool.
So, I’ll tell you more about that night in a bit.
Not long *after* this evening with DLR I was on a “men’s retreat” — the kind where guys go out in the woods and yell and cry and beat on drums and name themselves after animals and then cry some more.
I learned about The Wild Man that lives within us all.
I realized I loved the Wild Man. He has so much raw power. So much juice. Passion. Sexual energy. He is a M-o-t-h-e-r-f-*-c-k-e-r.
On that rainy, muddy night I thought about David Lee Roth. On stage he embodied the Wild Man. He was larger than life. Ready to love. Ready to play. Ready for adventure.
But he doesn’t just live inside of David Lee Roth.
Hear me now: There is a Wild Man in you, too. A primal, growling, c*ck-swinging, stinky, f*cking and fighting masterpiece of a being.
Does that scare you?
You know that thing you’re scared to ask your lover to do to you in bed? Yeah. That’s the Wild Man.
Feminists hate the Wild Man. Intellectuals dismiss him. Nice guys apologize for him. But bored housewives CRAVE him. Go figure.
What’s the only threat to the Wild Man? A cage. And I realized I had a tendency to keep my Wild Man in a cage.
For the most part society doesn’t accept the Wild Man. In other words, we don’t accept a fundamental part of our Who. We. Are.
We fear the Wild Man.
We’re ashamed of him. We contort ourselves to act like he doesn’t exist. “Let’s keep things civilized. Let’s put him in the cage.”
There’s a consequence to caging the Wild Man. Life feels flat. There’s no juice. There’s no play. There’s no grass stains. There’s no grit. No quickies in the parking garage during lunch break.
So on one hand is the assumption that if we let the Wild Man out then we’ll LOSE CONTROL! He’ll screw everything up. He’ll do something stupid. He’ll hurt us and the folks we care about.
And on the other is the realization that killing him is actually killing ourselves. Say goodbye to that power, that juice, that FIRE for life.
So are you doomed either way?
Join me back at the club with Mr Roth…
Get your imagination going. The loud music, the girls. The videos for “Panama” and “Yankee Rose”. Skin. Powder. Drinks. A huge inflatable microphone that’s really a dong. Houston, this club is in orbit!
That night? It was *nothing* like that.
Dave was a gentleman. He sat around and told stories. If you were there you wouldn’t have noticed him. His 1,236 pound bodyguard was the one catching everyone’s eye. More so than the girls.
But wait — we’re expecting Dave to go crazy!
He has a license to burn the place down! He owns pants that have the a*s torn out!
He didn’t go crazy. He was not the Wild Man. Far from it.
Now, I’m not going to pretend to know Dave. But that night I realized there was more to him than the Wild Man.
He didn’t have to be the Wild Man because *he has an outlet* for his Wild Man. His Wild Man is accepted, nurtured and respected. There’s a place and time for Dave’s Wild Man — it’s the stage not the cage.
So even at a strip club in the debauchery of Hollywood…
There was no need to let his Wild Man run the room.
Now — what’s the takeaway? Simple. It’s integration. We’ve got to integrate the Wild Man into our lives. Caging him is not the solution.
We’ve got to create an outlet for the Wild Man.
Have you ever heard the saying, “A tired dog is a good dog”? That’s what I’m talking about.
Sit the Wild Man down for a beer. Make friends with him. Accept who he is. Accept who YOU are. Ask him what he wants. Give the Wild Man a place to safely play and then wear his stank a*s out.
Now ask yourself…
Do you accept your Wild Man or is he dying a painful death in the cage of your soul?
What would your life be like with that power, juice and fire at hand?
And how would it feel to trust and accept the grittier parts of yourself instead of worrying what others may think?
The Wild Man is only a raging lunatic when you keep him locked up in that cage. Learn how to lead him and you’ll connect with that vitality again.
Remember to have fun, Tripp
PS If you want to reconnect with that fire and juice for life again then CLICK HERE — you and I can privately discuss what would work specifically for you.
