Terms are what define you as a man. You live by your terms, you base your actions and decisions on them, and you don't compromise them. In a complex world full of vague standards, your terms will provide you with a clarity and a means by which you can measure all the situations and problems in your life, and then make your clear decisions and plan your straightforward actions without self doubt.

If you don't romance your woman, you are telling her she isn't attractive, special or sexy. Romance is therefore a loving and considerate act. And it will get you what you want . . . While both men and women like romance and sex, men tend to focus on the sex, and women on the romance. Therefore, a man's job is to be in charge of the romance: to plan and create the excitement.

The boy raised his hand and said: My father died three years ago. I don't remember him. When my mother is mad at me, she tells me I'm like my father. Who am I going to learn to become a man from? He was told to look at all the men around him: All of these men will be your father. And when your mother tells you that you are like your father, thank her.

I once witnessed a gathering of about fifty men who congratulated one man who had worked very hard to move his family from a rental apartment to a double-wide manufactured home he'd purchased. The gathering included some wealthy men who had very large houses. But they gave it up to the man who worked on himself and achieved his goal. The men honored the "Rock" of the hour. And then, being men, they teased him about getting a triple-wide the next year.

Fear is a feeling, not an obstacle. Men's work is where you can begin to face your challenges, master your fear, and take your life to a higher level.

Mark Twain had a marvelous way of depicting the nature of young boys in his books, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. But if those books were written today, Tom and Huck would be in therapy instead of catching frogs in the river and developing their characters through adventure and adversity.