Halloween has been my favorite holiday since I was a kid. The buzz and excitement that comes with decorating your house, carving pumpkins, dressing up, and getting candy; I mean what more could a kid want? As a young boy, I thought it was so cool when my dad and other dads would walk around with their kids, street to street, house to house to help us ask the infamous three word question to each door that opened up to us, “Trick or treat!?”

That same three word question has always stuck in my mind as I got older: Trick or treat?

Halloween is a holiday for pretending we’re someone else, but are we pretending beyond just this one day? In college I went through plenty of pretending to be someone I wasn’t.  Heck, this resonates with me even today, so I bet I’m not alone with the identity struggle.

I think this begs the question – are you the man you thought you’d be? Ask yourself, “Am I the husband I vowed I’d be?” Or maybe ask, “Am I showing up as the father I promised I would be?” I encourage you to ask yourself these set of questions and then asked your loved ones.

In reference to characters, one of my favorite character developments comes from the Mighty Ducks movie trilogy. In every movie, when the main character was out of alignment, the elder, wiser statesman always showed up to help the other have a reality check. Hans and Yans did it for Coach Bombay in D1 & D2 and Bombay returned the favor and sat down with Charlies in D3. Each one of these talks reminded the troubled character of the great man that others saw them as and they always ended it with saying, “So be that man.”

If you are out of alignment with how you wanted to show up as a father, husband, or leader I think Halloween 2015 is your call to action to hit the reset button. It’s your time to be UNCOMMEN and not dress up in who you want to be, but instead BE THAT MAN.

Here’s my “Be That Man” Challenge:

• Go into the holiday season with a developed action plan to address, “Here is how I am going to show up as a (pick one) father, husband, leader.” Include tangible things you can do (i.e. I will take my wife out on a date once a week, I will spend every Saturday morning removed from my phone and play with my kid) and evaluate how well you did it, etc.
• Use the weeks in between Halloween and Thanksgiving to Be That Man by implementing your action plan. Ask for regular feedback from loved ones to gauge how you’re doing. Make changes accordingly.
• The first day of the challenge is Halloween. The last day of the challenge is Thanksgiving Day. (Yes, this gives you something else to be thankful for – your progression throughout this journey).

Use your UNCOMMEN community to keep you accountable. Begin on Halloween Day and take someone to go out and ask, “Trick or treat!?” It’s no trick, you can do this. That version of yourself does exist and I believe doing this challenge will help you reclaim it.  So be that man. Be that man.