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.

I was 27.

Nope, 26. I had just been through a really, really tough experience. I was beyond confused, beyond lost. I needed answers. “What the hell just happened to me?”

My life felt fractured. I was living in “flatland”. I was living as if my gut and heart didn’t matter. I dismissed them, and it was painful.

Spirituality? Nope. Emotions? Whatever. Love? Puh-leez. It was all just a biological ruse to get us monkeys to get it on and make more monkeys. All of it.

But that didn’t really make sense. I wanted “all of it” to make sense. I wanted “all of it” to fit together. I knew there had to be more.

My life was like an unsolved Rubik’s cube.

Everything all over the place. Nothing seemed to line up. I’d make progress on one side only to see that it was messing up the others. Crap.

And then somehow I managed to get a copy of Ken Wilber’s A Brief History of Everything. I remember the mysterious bald guy on the cover.

The book was a challenge to read, but I finished it at 2:37 in the morning.

ZZWWWRRRATTT!!

I felt like I had a car battery hooked up to my nipples. I couldn’t sleep. I felt such a huge relief. All of it fit. Finally!

That bald brainy guy changed the way I saw the world — money, spirituality, nature, culture and relationships — all of it. Ken Wilber’s work with Integral Theory helped me see how the Rubik’s cube could be solved.

I was never the same.

Now flash forward a few years later. I was a fledgling coach. I’d been searching for the right training. And everything I checked out just — well, sucked.

I wanted to learn how to actually help people, to help them transform their lives for the better. If I was going to call myself a coach, my stuff had to work. It had to be focused on what really matters.

I found myself in a loft in San Francisco to witness an Authentic Man Program Intensive. It was hot. It was stinky. I was surrounded by guys who are crying, laughing, yelling and crying some more.

I remember thinking I was going to get my ass beat at one point.

It was intense. It was electrifying.

These participants entered that loft to simply improve their relating with women — they ended up leaving with so, so, so much more. This was the biggest bait and switch I’d ever seen — in a good way.

These men (myself included) were learning that relationship was more than just the ability to navigate the emotional world of a girlfriend or wife — it was the path to everything we could ever want in life. It was wholeness. It was service. It was Love.

Relationship was the door to everything that matters.

In that loft I witnessed a process called “Circling.” I was watching guys reach levels of insight and realization that might take years of meditation or therapy — if ever. And yet, via Circling this was happening within a matter of minutes. But this wasn’t therapy.

I decided right then and there I was going to learn Circling. I was never the same.

So, I’m telling you all of this because finally — FINALLY — The Integral Community and the creators of Circling are joining forces for the Alethia Integral Relating Intensive.

Both Ken Wilber and Decker Cunov (previous guests on The New Man) will be a part of this weekend event. Two of the biggest influences on my life and the work I do are co-creating an experience for you.

BOOM!

This must be how the Earth shook when chocolate found peanut butter. Or bacon found, uh, the bedroom (don’t judge me).

In preparation for the event Decker Cunov is holding a live Q&A call where you can get more info about what to expect.

The Q&A call is this Wednesday July 13th.

And it won’t cost you a thing.

Simply click here to learn more.

I look forward to hearing how this event impacts you.

Tripp

PS I want you to experience Circling — I want you to experience a process that reveals what really matters in a way that really works. Again, simply CLICK HERE to get all of the info about the event and the live Q&A call with Decker Cunov this Wednesday July 13th.

Podcast: Download

Do you ever feel like your head is up your *ss?

Are you tired of feeling stuck and wish that a bolt of lightning would come down to change everything in an instant?

Or maybe you’re wasting your life in some draining relationship or holding a grudge that is rotting your soul.

In this interview we’re talking about epiphanies with Elise Ballard. What ARE epiphanies? And how can YOUR life be forever changed by one? Listen in as we discuss and tell our own very personal stories.

This is the Edgiest Show I’ve Ever Done

On a personal level, this is the edgiest show I’ve ever done. In this interview I share a story about my life that up until this point I had only shared with a handful of people.

In this episode:

• Epiphanies and why they’re important
• How to find your inner voice
• How to prepare yourself for an epiphany
• What to do if you’ve had an epiphany
• Ending a painful relationship
• Letting go of a grudge

About Elise Ballard

Elise Ballard is an actress, independent filmmaker and producer, the creator of EpiphanyChannel.com, and now, an author. Epiphany: True Stories of Sudden Insight to Inspire, Encourage and Transform is her first book. She started her career in entertainment working as an actress in New York, Austin, TX and Los Angeles, and moved into producing in Los Angeles as a partner in a production company that produced films distributed by Lionsgate and Monarch Entertainment. Her critically acclaimed directorial debut, Lord of the Wiens: A Dachumentary, a movie about the annual Wiener Dog Races in Buda, TX, became a cult hit, receiving considerable national press coverage, playing film festival circuits and PBS, and is still selling to lovely dachshund fans worldwide. Since then, she has created, directed and produced numerous projects including BackStage: Behind the Scenes segments for Time Warner cable’s Publik Music channel; FitPack, a series of short exercise regimens and viral ads by NYC celebrity trainer Joel Harper, and the YOU DVDs accompanying the YOU book series by world-renowned, bestselling authors, Drs. Mehmet Oz and Michael Roizen. She is currently in development on several projects, including more for EpiphanyChannel.com, film and television versions of the project, and future books for the Epiphany series.

Click here to visit EpiphanyChannel.com.