Scoutmaster Teaches Life Lessons, Applies Scouting Principles to Strengthen Marriages and Preserve Families

Be Prepared.  It’s the Boy Scout Motto. The Scout Manual provides guidance for any situation that might arise, outdoors or in, even relating to conduct as it encourages a Scout to “Do a Good Turn Daily.” But life outside of Scouting’s purview becomes a little more complicated. How can a man be prepared for the relationship challenges of marriage and fatherhood? Those issues are nowhere to be found in the guidebook.  

Paul Allerton noticed this absence as he was figuring out how to grow personally and navigate life. The Eagle Scout and Scoutmaster found Scouting offered him a framework to achieve purpose and meaning as a young man but remained silent when it came to modeling how to be a successful husband and father. He was called to write a guidebook for men, and when COVID freed up his schedule, he knew it was time to finish what he had started several years before. 

Paul’s 2020 book, The Essential Guide for the Married Man: Principles and Lessons for Navigating a Successful Marriage and a Meaningful Life, brings insight to men who desire a meaningful and successful marriage. As a relationship coach and long-time Scoutmaster (he’s helped more than 120 young men achieve the rank of Eagle, including his own three sons), Paul understands the unique strengths and challenges men bring to relationships, specifically marriage. Despite what our culture tells us, men are surprisingly interested in marriage, he says, but they need guidance - especially in the shifting culture where roles and expectations have so dramatically changed.

“The best thing I can do is to lead men to be disciplined, committed and generous husbands and fathers who care for their wives, children and community,” he said. Paul realized early in his own marriage that he needed to overcome a lack of good role models. He was on a quest to learn from the “greats” like Dobson, Maxwell, Swindoll, Smalley, Trent, and Focus on the Family. Paul works professionally as a management consultant, but he began coaching men when his sons followed his footsteps into Scouting. Their experience caused him to reflect on the program’s profound impact on his own life. 

“Our obligations mold us as we step up and take responsibility,” he said. “I started to apply Scouting principles to the men I was coaching.” He targets his book to men because he feels there were “thousands of great books on relationships, but they were all written for women.” 

Paul’s a living testament to the success of his philosophies. “When I think about what I have created in my family, it’s so far from what I grew up with. There’s a deep-rooted desire and purpose to share with others so they can give to their children what I have given mine,” he said. “We’re not defined by our pasts but by where we go in the future.” 

Paul feels his God-given purpose is to help strengthen marriages and preserve families by inspiring men and giving them hope that they can create the kinds of lives, families and communities they may not have seen growing up.  

Traditional rites of passage have fallen away, leaving men without guidance and structure. “Men don’t have that, but it’s desperately needed,” he said. 

In the book, Paul notes that “Marriage and becoming a father are two of the most important Rites of Passage in a man’s life. Unfortunately, our society no longer recognizes them as such, nor do the elder men prepare, counsel, and train the younger men to succeed in these endeavors. Furthermore, there are desperately few elder men who are adequately equipped and possess the conviction to do so. As a result, good men and women enter marriage with false expectations and misconceptions about how to create a successful marriage.”

“Men want to do well, but they can be paralyzed by doubt and indecision,” he said. “I’ve watched young men be physically transformed by the process and find direction, purpose and confidence in their path. Men care deeply and can be easily side-lined by doubt. Quitting becomes a habit.” 

In Scouting, there’s a path and a plan to become an Eagle Scout. Paul follows the same model in his book. He starts on the foundation of faith. 

“Faith is important. The man is the spiritual leader in his home. Whether the father goes to church is the number one determiner if a family goes to church,” he said. Paul encourages men to pick a prayer, such as the Lord’s prayer, and “start the day with a 30-second connection with God first thing in the morning.” He compares this practice to saying the Scout Oath on a regular basis. “You start to live up to the promise of the Oath.” 

The heart of Paul’s book explores the dynamics of conflict that tear marriages apart and provides the keys to avoiding and eliminating this conflict.

“My hope is to breathe new life into marriages and to provide those who are embarking on this journey the best preparation for success,” he wrote. One of the ways he achieves this is through a process he calls “the Request Translator,” which he claims will, “fundamentally eliminate conflict in your marriage.” “It’s a subtle shift,” he says, to listen to a wife’s ‘complaint’ without becoming insecure and defending yourself.”  “Instead, he says, translate your wife’s ‘complaint’ into a request. 

For example: Your wife says, “You are never home.” “Your first thought is to defend yourself, remind her that you are working two jobs to put a roof over your heads. She doesn’t want to hear that. If her husband can translate her complaint to hear her say, ‘I want to be with you,’ ‘I want to feel important to you,’ he will be drawn toward her and the marriage can be strengthened instead of it creating a wedge between them,” Paul offered.

Another familiar Boy Scout lesson found in the book – Be Prepared. Paul encourages men to prepare themselves to make good choices. He’ll tell a man that when he is serving in his God-given purpose, he will attract a woman who believes in him. Paul uses John Grey’s analogy of a train to help a man identify his destination in life. “Know where you are going, so the right passenger gets in the car with you.” 

“Part of this journey and time on this planet is doing something meaningful in this life,” he said. Drawing on the lesson from his own 1967 Handbook, he says “I tell young men that they have a moral obligation to make their life count. You have something to contribute, and we are counting on you to contribute.  When a man decides to make his life count, it matters if he’s doing his best. It matters to him, and it matters to those he has taken into his care.”

Paul encourages men to commit to maturity and believes marrying and becoming a father calls men to their best selves. 

“Obligations cause us to do and to be better.” Married men have higher incomes because they feel the tug of caring for others. Paul finds many single men in their 40s and 50s lead empty lives and are “a fraction of the men they could have become,” he said. 

“One of the most painful things I ever witnessed was a man in his late 70s who had been divorced for 30+ years. Now he saw firsthand the cost of his actions to his children at a time he could no longer do anything about it. The pain and grief are profound,” he said. “You can lie to yourself for a while, but real consequences will eventually catch up with you.”

Another problem, escaping reality and responsibility through video games. “They feel safe, there’s no real risk,” Paul said. “We need to put men in an environment where other people count on them and where they know they have something to contribute. Men need to have experiences. Experience builds skills, skills build confidence, confidence builds leadership. A man needs to be equipped with the skills to take care of himself and those who count on him.”

Another compelling feature of the book is the Attitude Assessment Tool, which he uses to inspire men to step up and assume leadership. The tool is a two-dimensional grid that charts initiative and responsibility. The servant leader scores on the top right of the graph, in comparison to the procrastinator with no initiative; the disruptor, who feeds his ego; the quitter, and the resigned, who don’t know how to move forward. 

“A lot of our good men have not had to be really accountable or responsible for anything. They haven’t had to step up into leadership, to say ‘you can count on me for this.’ It is our obligations and responsibilities as a man that drive the development of our character. It doesn’t happen any other way!” 

Paul said he has great hope because when a man actually uses the Attitude Assessment Tool, his naturally competitive nature will cause him to change his behavior to improve his score. He told of a young man who went off to college, and like so many without responsibility, had too much fun. Paul said he re-explained the Tool to his former Scout and reminded him that the tool will cause him to compete with himself to do his best. Three years later, the young man was asked to join a doctoral program. “He had the foundation, he just got derailed and needed a tool to get himself back on track,” Paul said. 

Once best practices have been identified, all a man needs to do is “to do what they do well, more often. Care deeply, make sacrifices, understand your commitments,” he said. “The more men who have this, the better things will be. I have seen some of the most bitter, broken, angry and hurt become the most committed and disciplined once they healed that pain. Imagine a world where all men are disciplined, committed, and generous…everything changes. Together we can change the world for good!”

Paul’s ultimate goal is that a husband and wife can give their children a secure and loving home. “We want to have a home that children come to, not go from. I didn’t have that model, but the book brings me full circle. It is a guide to help men understand what they need to do to be prepared to change their legacy,” he said. Read the Guide, and you can thrive in your marriage and your life! 

Paragraph Excerpt from Chapter 4: The Request Translator

This perhaps is the single greatest tool that a man should learn to master. This excerpt is from Chapter Four of The Essential Guide for the Married Man.

“Anytime you hear words coming out of your wife’s mouth that sound like a complaint about you (I know it doesn’t happen very often, but when it does), you are NOT allowed to respond (thank you Stephen Covey) until you are able to translate her complaint into a request. Again, until you are able to translate what sounds to you like a complaint about you, you are forbidden to do or say ANYTHING until you can decode your wife’s message by translating her words into a request for something that she wants. If you are able to do this, two very important complementary principles are put into motion.

First, you disarm the natural triggers that lead to defending yourself, using the weapons of defense against your wife, and creating a conflict that didn’t exist until you opened your mouth. That alone is good.

Second, and more importantly, even if you are not able to satisfy or fulfill her request at that moment, you will be naturally drawn to do so. Men are naturally wired that way; we are designed by God to do good. When you ask a man to do something, particularly when it sounds like he is the only one who can do it, it is hard for him to say no. Absent all other conflicting thoughts, your conscience will compel you to say yes.

So in an instant, what could have been the source of a prolonged conflict is magically transformed into you being drawn closer to her and generating first love the verb, which then manifests in love the noun.”…. Notice how your entire demeanor changes in an instant! You feel desired. This feeds your ego instead of being attacked, which provokes it.

So give her the benefit of the doubt. Remember:

I’d rather be wrong and do the right thing, than be right and do the wrong thing.

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