Southside Men's Group
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ZOOM option adopted

3/1/2021

 
When COVID surfaced, we quickly instituted a ZOOM telecommunication meeting that continues as an option to our traditional face-to-face experience. 

​If you want to join us either was, we'd encourage you to reach out via our contact page.
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Drama?

10/7/2015

 
 The topic at last Saturday's meeting was
"What is the soap opera in your life, now?" 

Are Men Finished?

7/13/2015

 
The Intelligence Squared topic for Father's Day was:
 "ARE MEN FINISHED"?. 


Perhaps it would have better been an April Fools Day broadcast?. 
intelligencesquaredus.org/podcast
Edited debate
Complete debate

SSMG: Front Page News

4/15/2015

 

Once a week, year round, a group of men gather in Bloomington to discuss issues of importance in their lives.

Sometimes those discussions are about challenges the men face – be it with their career, health or family – other times the discussions are a celebration – a pat-on-the-back, so to speak – about the successes the men have had with their career, health or family. The loose-knit group is not a faith-based organization, and they’re not united by any one cause, such as support for alcoholism, gambling addiction or the death of a loved one.

The Southside Men’s Group meets Saturday mornings at Bloomington’s Creekside Community Center, and it has done so for than three decades. Each week a group of men – of varying ages and backgrounds – gather for a 90-minute meeting, driven primarily out of an interest in personal growth and support from others seeking the same.

A leaderless model
Steve Peer of Bloomington is about the closest thing the group has to a leader. He’s been with the Bloomington group since it spun off from the original group in the north metro more than 35 years ago. There are no officers within Southside Men’s Group, the meetings run each week regardless of who shows up.

“It’s a leaderless model,” Peer said. The model is based upon the group that formed about four decades ago, known as the North Side Men’s Group. It started with just two men, one of whom was Earnie Larsen. Larsen worked professionally with 12-step, recovery and personal-change programs. He held degrees in counseling, education and theology, and lectured, counseled and conducted workshops and seminars on improving interpersonal relationships. He was also the author of 30 books. And it was his sitting down one Saturday morning to talk with another man about the challenges in their lives that resulted in the men’s groups that meet today, Peer explained. Larsen’s group grew through word-of-mouth, and he would often mention his group in presentations he made throughout the Twin Cities. Those presentations might result in two or three men coming to a Saturday morning meeting, Peer recalled.

Peer made the weekly commute to Brooklyn Park to be a part of the group, and as the group grew to approximately 100, Peer and Earl Holdridge of Edina decided there was room for a second group, closer to home. The duo took Larsen’s model and replicated it in Bloomington.

Holdridge learned of Larsen’s group the way many had. “I had gone to one of his talks,” he said.

It was Larsen’s discussion about healthy relationships that resonated with Holdridge and drew him to the Saturday morning meetings. At the time Holdridge had been divorced for about nine years, and he was a year away from remarrying. He was nervous about remarrying, and turned to the group for support while he was dealing with his conflicting feelings. A year later he did get married, and he continued to attend group meetings, he recalled.

When Peer and Holdridge created their Bloomington group, they met at Lincoln Del. When the restaurant closed in 2000, the group moved to Creekside Community Center.

90 minutes
A few volunteers gather each week prior to the 8:30 a.m. start of the meeting to prepare the room, which includes making coffee. The meeting begins at 8:30 with a few announcements, including a review of the group’s guidelines. The group also opens up for men to share a few comments about recent accomplishments or setbacks in the lives. At 8:45 a.m., a speaker talks for 15-20 minutes about their personal growth. Those speakers sign up in advance of the weekly meeting, Peer noted. After the presentation, the men divide into smaller groups and discuss personal growth challenges in their life, according to Peer. The small group discussion often includes responses to a question posed by the weekly speaker, he noted. By 10 a.m. the group adjourns, with members sometimes gathering at a nearby restaurant for follow-up conversation, Peer said.

Occasionally group members will gather at other times of the week for a few months as a result of conversations and interests shared within the group, but the group doesn’t schedule much outside of Saturday mornings. There have been a few 24-hour retreats organized in years past, and the group did participate in a fundraising effort to help offset its community center rental and coffee costs, according to Peer. Guests are not asked to contribute to the group’s expenses, but regular members are asked to contribute $7 to offset the weekly expenses, although nobody is turned away if they cannot afford to pay, Peer noted.

Continuing on
Larsen died in 2011. The groups he inspired continue on, but they don’t have him advocating for them these days.

Peer, 60, was a young adult when he started attending the weekly meetings. Although the groups attract men of all ages, the average age has skewed higher over the years, and keeping the Bloomington club invigorated is a bit of a challenge, according to Peer.

The group doesn’t actively recruit men to join. The topic may come up in conversation, but pitching the concept to 30 random people isn’t likely to reach much of an audience seeking what the group offers, Peer surmised.

Peer knows the group isn’t the only outlet people have to discuss the challenges in their life. A 12-step group, for example, has an accountability aspect that is important to those in attendance, but that’s not an element of the men’s group, Peer noted.  And a faith-based group may not provide a setting that some men will find comfortable when discussing their personal challenges, he added.

Peer thinks that the loosely organized group makes it more challenging to participate in. A 12-step group, for example, addresses an identified issue in a man’s life. The men’s group, in contrast, isn’t about addressing a common issue. And human nature often results in people addressing a personal issue when the issue has reached a crisis level. For most members of the group, their participation isn’t driven by such crisis, Peer explained.

For Peer and Holdridge, there’s always something to be gained. Peer called the weekly group meetings “a healthy 90 minutes each week. “I can’t see not going, as long as I’m able to go,” he added. Holdridge, 82, finds that the group conversations are conversations he doesn’t have with men in other settings. He often sees himself in the men who share their stories, he noted.  “Each time I go there I learn something about myself,” he said.

Information about the group is available online at southsidemensgroup.org.

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Steve H submits the top 5 Neuro Discoveries in 2014

12/31/2014

 
In 2014, neuroscience leapt out of the research laboratories and became an integral part of how we think (literally) about business. Here are the discoveries and insights that have changed the workplace over the past year:

1. Your brain uses words to interpret events. Therefore, the words that you attach to emotions determine how you experience those emotions. If you use intense words (hate, stress, dread, etc.) describe how you feel in challenging situations, you intensify the fight/flight response, which is ineffective in business.

Relabeling your emotions with bland or positive words (dislike, excited, curious, etc.) makes a fight/flight response less likely, making you calmer in a pinch.

2. Once again, because your brain uses words to interpret events, fuzzy words create fuzzy thinking and vice-versa. Training yourself to use shorter, less ambiguous words, enables your brain to more accurately characterize situations and thus devise effective, creative responses.

Three simple exercises can help you do this: 1) avoiding buzzwords and biz-blab, 2) simplifying your business writing, and 3) practicing the "one syllable" game.

3. Neuroscientists and psychologists have long studied how the human brain reacts to visual, audio and tactile experiences. Thevcorrect combination of those experiences increasess the amount of information that an audience absorbs and retains.

Eight simple changes to your presentation (like an easily understood storyline) can vastly improve your ability to influence others. 

4. The human brain contains mirror neurons that tend to make people imitate the behavior and thought processes of others. Great leaders find ways to inspire their followers to have certainty that the leader's strategies and tactics will work.

Four simple changes to your management style can therefore make people more willing to follow your leadership.

5. It's intuitive that people are more willing to follow the lead of an optimist who seeks the positive rather than a pessimist who fears the negative. Neuroscience can now explain why this is true: optimists have greater control of their thought processes and are less likely to panic.

Five basic mental habits help managers and leaders encourage and create the right attitude for their own success and the success of the teams they lead.

New proposed logo

12/29/2014

 
As I redid the site, it seemed to be missing a signature image, or logo, so I commissioned this one and am eager to her your feedback:
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The Follow-up Questions Posed in November & Part of December

12/15/2014

 
Question (12/13/2014): How stable is your relationship?
Question (12/6/2014): How do I figure out how to turn anxiety around and not let it turn to anger?  
Question (11/29/2014): Are you doing things to please yourself or others?  
Question (11/22/2014): What makes you sweat?
Question (11/15/2014):  Are you the man you really think you wanted to be as a kid?

QR code design for Avery Lables

12/2/2014

 
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Handy image that points to our site

11/24/2014

 
Here's a QR code that, when scanned by smartphones, opens our site automatically.
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22 Nov 2014 Talk

11/24/2014

1 Comment

 
The purpose of this blog is not to archive talks.  I reference this particular talk on this particular Saturday as two documents were mentioned: The Five Wishes directive, and the POLST document, both end-of-life documents.

The Fives Wishes is a document is purchased from http://www.agingwithdignity.org  (the file below is a sample). It is a lengthier document that guides the user through a broad range of aspects including family, medical care, and burial.  

The POLST requires a doctor guidance to complete (and sign), but the result is a single-sided, single-page document meant for professions to instantly inform them of the medical care options you choose.
5wishes.pdf
File Size: 245 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

polstform.pdf
File Size: 142 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

1 Comment
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