Horsmon describes his values in this way:  “One of the things I expect of myself is to be transparent, to be uncomfortably honest with myself so I can be uncomfortably honest with other people.  I have a value of not playing games and getting involved in emotional drama. I have a value of being so clear about what I believe and what I want in life that people aren’t left guess-ing about who I am. I have a value of being empathetic toward people and that compassion and empathy and forgiveness are the foundation for well-being. That is true first for yourself and then for those in your life so you can stop taking everything so personally and stop thinking that everything is about you or happening to you. Be secure enough in yourself and confident enough to be compassionate and forgiving and empathetic. That is an important value of mine — to learn, study and spend time with people who are like that so I can be even more like that.”

Horsmon works with all kinds of men coming from a wide variety of circumstances and situations. “I’m a men’s coach, short and sweet. I’m a mentor and a coach to men around the world who want more out of life. They want more confidence, they want more self-esteem, more self-respect. Quite often my clients come to me through what I jokingly call “death by female”.  Often, a man finds himself at the potential end of a marriage or the end a relationship with a woman who has somehow convinced him that he’s been doing it all wrong, that he’s not any good and he’s a failure. These men are often very accomplished high achievers who, for the first time in their lives, usually when they are in their 40’s or 50’s, begin to think they don’t know anything, particularly anything about women, sex or marriage. I help them make sense of it and get them back on track and create the life they want.”

Often wives of successful men begin to see their role as helping their mate keep their ego in check.  They may not mean to be so contrary, but it becomes a habit. It’s like “Everyone thinks you walk on water so I’m here to point out to you that you don’t”, which can be invaluable in certain instances but can really undermine a man’s confidence if it’s on a regular basis.

Steve Horsmon describes it this way: “Most guys use a gauge for success that involves measuring status, notoriety, fame, or money and those are some pretty poor gauges to use when you define success. When it comes to death by female, sometimes men discover things are not as they thought they were with love, sex and marriage.  Then they start to think that none of that stuff mattered because what they know, what they do and the money they make has no bearing whatsoever on confidence.  A real sense of worthiness and confidence has nothing to do with your traditional measures of success and this is where my coaching becomes somewhat spiritual.  For example, what is freedom?  If you reach a consistent understanding and a fairly calm, deliberate and pleased outlook on yourself and life, you start to understand that thoughts are just thoughts and that your feelings of unwellness, stress, anxiety, or depression, are just manifestations of your thoughts. True success, or true freedom, is when you realize that you define your reality though how you think about what’s happening instead of being a victim of everything that’s happening around you.”

Recognizing that thoughts are like waves that pass through your mind is a key to maintaining inner peace.  Just because a particular thought comes into your head doesn’t mean you have to embrace it.  “Don’t believe everything you think and don’t believe everything you feel either,” Horsmon says. “That’s freedom. You’re no longer a victim of your emotions and the randomness of thought that comes along. You’re liberated and you can slow down and be amused by what’s happening instead of feeling like you have to react to everything. For men, that’s a very calm place to be. I believe maintaining a successful relationship is very difficult for a man until he reaches that spot.

Our values determine our choices and our choices determine the path of our life.  “That is very evident when we look back on our life,” Horsmon says, “but it’s not so clear if you start at the other end, like in your teens. I’ve found out that being of service to people — using your gift, whatever your gift happens to be — leads to happiness,  I’ve discovered I have a particular gift in helping men see things in plain and actionable terms. And being of service there is the most important value I have, far beyond success or money because I;ve learned that any measure of success and money is simply the casual result of serving people. I used to think it was the other way around. You gotta make your money first and then you’ll feel good. That’s not it. Early on, my values were shaped through insecurity, through a need for external validation — a need for attention, affection and approval. From my wife I needed to feel intimate and sexual, appreciated and accepted, because I didn’t feel that way when I was by myself.  So, what I valued then was what other people could do for me. Whenever I gave something, I had a hidden contract to get something back.  Now, my values are that you just give. You just give and you keep giving and you give until it hurts and you don’t stop giving and when you have zero expectations for an outcome, that’s when your life changes.”

Steve Horsman believes that a life coach has to choose his clients carefully.  “You have to have people who are ready to grow.  You can’t use money as a measure of whether or not to work with a client.  You don’t want clients who could sabotage your sense of peace and harmony and drain you emotionally because they’re not prepared yet for the type of service you have. It’s better to  lose a client like that because it frees you up to serve so many other people. And I also won’t work with a person who is going to go into financial debt to hire me. Putting this on a credit card that you can’t pay off next month will create more problems. This work is important, but I’m not going to put you into debt to do it.”

I asked Steve Horsmon if there is a source of guidance or regular inspiration that he uses to keep himself on track. “Well, the first thing that keeps me on the right track is continuing to serve other people. One of my mantras is that you will never take any person deeper into their transformation than you’ve been able to take yourself or allowed someone else to take you. And so I’m constantly a student of going deeper and deeper into myself so I can serve people from that level. So that’s one way to do it. When you stay in service to others and you commit to being a master at what you do, you have no choice but to continue learning and that means you absorb everything you possibly can and you give it the weight it needs. I do have people I follow.  I used to be a real big Tony Robbins fan for transformation and personal growth, but now I work with my own personal coach, Rich Litvin, who is partnered with Steve Chandler. These guys are incredible human beings and coaches who have a way of transforming lives. Their thought processes are important to me so I follow them.  I subscribe to a number of newsletters and things like that. I don’t have any particular doctrine that I follow, but I find that a large percentage of my clients are Christian. I’ve been told, ‘Don’t you realize, Steve, that everything you’re talking about is right out of the Bible?’ In fact, I have a close friend that has a ministry and she tells me that all the time.”

Horsmon believes that many of our economic and political problems are the result of ignorance, insecurity and fear. “When there’s chronic ignorance and fear and insecurity, a lot of really bad thoughts happen which create a lot of really bad emotions which result in a really bad decision.  I could put this in the context of our current leadership in government, I could put it in the context of the marriage-divorce rate, I could put it in the context of the transgender wars that are happening now. When we have insecurity and fear at the helm there’s a lot of bad thoughts and decisions which get made and the actions that come from those are the biggest problems we have to face. I specialize in relationship help. My goal is not to improve the divorce rate. My goal is to improve the number of healthy men, therefore, the number of healthy relationships so we can stop some of this game playing and finger pointing in relationships and marriage.  The most important thing I’d like to reiterate is that the only way you can be in a healthy relationship is to be a healthy man.  When you’re in a place of not knowing what you don’t know we call that “unconscious incompetence.”  That gives you a sense of insecurity, you lack confidence and you’re fearful.  When you are in that state, you’re going to create those situations everywhere you go, in your workplace, with your children and with your wife.  The point here is that there’s a point of self-reliance and spiritual confidence which you have to reach to understand that you’re worthy of more. You can create more confidence. You can create a better sense of self-worth and show up in your relationships as a healthy man, so you can finally give what you have to give instead of worrying about what you’re not getting.”

It is that kind of clear logic and cool unselfish reasoning that makes Steve Horsmon a true Man of Value.