Tag: relationships

No, I Don’t Cook: The state of marriage in the world

To answer the most asked question I get during the holidays, no, I don’t cook. My wife does. That’s not a joke, it’s a commitment we made in 1988 when we married young and chose a traditional family on purpose. I mow the grass, fix the cars, bring home the apples; she turns them into pie. That division of labor has kept our household steady for nearly four decades, and every year the same eyebrows go up from people who ask those kinds of questions—“You can’t say that.” Of course I can. We built our marriage like a small business with roles we both wanted, not roles assigned by a committee of strangers. And when someone tries to question our deal at the family gatherings over the years, I keep a poker face, and stay civil and nice—but I remember. My wife remembers too: I had an aunt once who took her to lunch to lecture her on feminism, the in-laws who offered social pressure in progressive wrapping paper, the yearly chorus of “help with the dishes or else.” We pushed back not to score points, but to defend something we knew was worth protecting.

What’s funny—what’s tragic, really—is how much social commentary people will smuggle into a question around stuffing and cranberry sauce. Behind the small talk lives a theory of marriage: some think roles should be erased; we think roles should be agreed upon. I believe in complementary strengths. And I don’t belittle the cook; I admire the work my wife does in our family, she is 100% committed in ways that are nearly gone these days. She’s made possible the work I do when most people are sleeping, because the clothes are clean, the house runs well, and a hot plate finds its way to my chair in the middle of the night. You want to know how I read so much, write so much, keep so many projects moving? It starts with the dinner that arrives without me asking.

Now, if we’re going to talk about how marriages actually fare, let’s invite the numbers into the room. The United States logged 2,041,926 marriages in 2023—about 6.1 per 1,000 people—and 672,502 divorces across 45 reporting states and D.C., roughly 2.4 per 1,000. That’s the official snapshot, and it tells you something simple: marriages rebounded from the pandemic dip, and divorces keep drifting down from their 1980s peak. 12 If you prefer measures that adjust for who’s actually at risk, Bowling Green State University’s National Center for Family & Marriage Research (NCFMR) puts the 2023 refined divorce rate at 14.4 divorces per 1,000 married women, slightly down from 2022; some analysts saw it nudge lower again in 2024. The refined marriage rate for women in 2023 held around 31.5 per 1,000 unmarried women. Translate that: fewer divorces relative to the number married, and a stable likelihood of marriage among those unmarried. 34

Of course, national averages flatten out the geography. In 2023, Utah had the highest refined marriage rate (49 marriages per 1,000 unmarried women), while Louisiana and Delaware were near the bottom; for divorce, Alaska had the highest rate and Vermont the lowest, with the U.S. at 14.4 overall. That’s culture, economics, and age composition all doing their dance. 43

And how long do marriages last? The federal government no longer publishes fine-grained duration tables the way it once did, but the NSFG’s event histories and Census reports paint enough of the outline: the median age at first marriage has climbed to historic highs—about 30.2 for men and 28.4 for women in 2023—meaning couples enter marriage later, after more schooling and work. Later marriages tend to be more stable than teen marriages, and the divorce hazards have shifted more toward economic stress and mismatched expectations than any single “traditional vs. egalitarian” switch. 56

If you step back and trace the arc since the mid-20th century, the significant facts are now old facts: we marry later, we marry less often, and divorce rates (by multiple measures) are lower than they were at their peak. OECD cross-national data puts the crude marriage rate for many wealthy countries between 3 and 5 per 1,000 today; the U.S. is higher than most at around 6, but it’s still far below the 1970s. Pandemic disruptions knocked weddings down in 2020, and they bounced back in 2021–2023. 78

The household story is equally stark: fewer than half of U.S. households today are married‑couple households. That was 78.8% after World War II; it’s been under half since 2010. Does that mean marriage is dead?  The cost of progressive lifestyles really starts to show here.  Our living arrangements have diversified, and a growing share of adults delay or forgo marriage—and often cohabit instead. 910 Pew’s longer view shows that most Americans now find cohabitation acceptable, even for couples who don’t plan to marry, though a majority still believes the country is better off if long-term couples eventually marry. Cohabitation has grown across age groups; by 2022, roughly 9% of Americans ages 18–64 were cohabiting at a point in time, up from 7.8% a decade earlier, with the highest shares in the late 20s. 1112

Does all that mean traditional marriage is disappearing? It’s more honest to say we’re in a sorting era. The median age at first marriage rose; remarriage fell; and the marriage share is increasingly concentrated among the college-educated and the religiously observant in certain regions. NCFMR shows the remarriage rate declining steadily since 2008—down to about 34.4 per 1,000 previously‑married men and 18.5 for women in 2023—suggesting fewer second chances through formal vows and more cohabitation after divorce. 13

And yet, under all the trends, the old expectations haven’t entirely vanished. A widely cited study in American Sociological Review found that in marriages formed after 1975, a husband’s lack of full-time employment predicts higher divorce risk, while a wife’s full-time employment does not—evidence that the breadwinner norm still carries weight even as homemaking expectations for wives have softened. 14 Another line of research argues that when partners’ gender norms clash—when the meaning of “husband” and “wife” isn’t mutually agreed—marriage becomes both more complicated to form and easier to break. That’s not ideology; it’s matching theory with real data on cohorts and states. 15

Once you admit the obvious—that marriage is a covenant built on agreements—my answer about holiday cooking stops sounding provocative and starts sounding like governance. The deal in our house is clear and cherished. We never outsourced it to a trend line or surrendered it to an aunt with a pamphlet. And when the holiday question lands, I hear the undertone: “Are you compliant with the new code?” No, we’re compliant with our vows. That choice has paid dividends in steadiness, in output, in the way we raise children and grandchildren, and yes, in sanity.

Around the globe, OECD figures show crude marriage rates clustered around the 4‑per‑1,000 mark with wide variance, and Our World in Data summarizes the broad pattern: most rich countries see later marriage, fewer marriages, and a decoupling of marriage from childbearing. In lower-income regions, median marriage ages are younger and formal rates are higher, but there’s intense regional variety, and progress on ending child marriage remains uneven and far too slow. 71617

Where does that leave the “traditional marriage comeback”? In the U.S., there’s no sudden surge in crude marriage rates; what we do see is a stabilization post-pandemic, a continued decline in divorce rates, and a concentration of marriage among those who treat it as a purposeful life strategy rather than an automatic milestone. Whether a couple chooses entirely traditional roles, fully egalitarian roles, or something bespoke for their house, the risk lies in misalignment—pressure from outside to reshape the inside. What saves a marriage is consented clarity. My wife and I made ours long ago, and we’ve maintained it against polite frowns and impolite lectures. I didn’t ask the world to bless that agreement, and I certainly didn’t give the world veto power over it. The results, measured by the calendar and the calm of a well-run home, speak for themselves.

So, no, I don’t cook at Christmas, Thanksgiving, or ever. She cooks, I carry the burdens outside the house, and the house hums. If the conversation at the table drifts toward social engineering, I smile and let the numbers do the talking: later marriages, fewer divorces, more cohabitation, fewer married‑couple households, and a stubborn breadwinner signal that hasn’t lost its force. You can read those trends as doom or as instruction; I read them as proof that the marriages that last are the ones grounded in agreed roles, mutual respect, and a united front against outside manipulation. That’s our holiday recipe. It’s kept us going for 37 winters, and it works.  And always remember, advice is only as good as the people giving it.  And most people aren’t qualified to give it.

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Notes & Sources (selected)

• U.S. marriages and divorces (2023): 2,041,926 marriages; 6.1 per 1,000 population; 672,502 divorces across 45 reporting states and D.C.; 2.4 per 1,000. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), NCHS FastStats & NVSS tables. 12

• Refined rates: NCFMR refined divorce rate ~14.4 (2023) and refined marriage rate ~31.5 (2023); state variation (Utah high marriage, Alaska high divorce). 34

• Median age at first marriage (U.S., 2023–2024): ~30.2 men, ~28.4 women; historical series since 1890. U.S. Census (MS‑2) and NCFMR profiles. 65

• Married‑couple household share under 50%; historical peak ~78.8% (1949). Census & USAFacts syntheses. 910

• Cohabitation attitudes and prevalence: Pew Research Center (2019) and NCFMR (2012–2022 CPS analysis). 1112

• Remarriage decline (2008–2023): NCFMR Family Profile on remarriage rates. 13

• Breadwinner signal & divorce risk: Alexandra Killewald, American Sociological Review (2016). 14

• Gender‑norm conflict and marital outcomes: Antman, Kalsi, Lee, Journal of Demographic Economics (2021). 15

• OECD cross‑national marriage/divorce comparisons & COVID disruption: OECD Family Database & documentation; Our World in Data. 78

• Global institution change overview: Our World in Data’s “Marriages and Divorces.” 16

• Child marriage progress & pace to elimination: UNICEF Data brief (2023). 17

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Annotated Bibliography

• CDC/NCHS – FastStats: Marriage and Divorce. U.S. nationwide counts and crude rates for marriages and divorces; latest provisional (2023). Clear definitions and coverage notes about non-reporting states for divorce. 1

• CDC/NVSS – National Marriage & Divorce Rate Trends (2000–2023). Historical tables showing year-by-year changes in crude marriage and divorce rates, with footnotes on state coverage. 2

• NCFMR (Bowling Green State University) – Refined Marriage & Divorce Rates (2023). ACS-based indicators that adjust for the population at risk; state maps and margins of error. Essential for understanding geographic variation and trends beyond crude rates. 43

• U.S. Census – Historical Marital Status Tables (MS‑1 & MS‑2). Extended‑run time series on marital status and median age at first marriage. Useful for context on age trends and the shrinking share of married adults. 6

• USAFacts – “How has marriage in the US changed over time?” (2025). Synthesizes Census series into digestible charts on age at first marriage and household composition; suitable for communicating to general audiences. 10

• Pew Research Center – “Marriage and Cohabitation in the U.S.” (2019). Attitudes and experiences around living together; relationship satisfaction comparisons; long-term shifts in cohabitation acceptance. 11

• NCFMR – “A Decade of Change in Cohabitation Across Age Groups: 2012 & 2022” (2024). CPS-based point-in-time prevalence by age; growth concentrated in late‑20s cohorts. 12

• NCFMR – “Remarriage Rate, 2023” (2025). ACS event counts and rates documenting the decline of remarriage across sexes and ages. 13

• Killewald (2016) – “Money, Work, and Marital Stability” (ASR). Panel Study of Income Dynamics analysis distinguishing economic resources from role signals: the persistent effect of male full-time employment on stability. 14

• Antman, Kalsi, Lee (2021) – “Gender norm conflict and marital outcomes” (JDE). Theory and evidence on how norm mismatch reduces marriage formation and increases fragility. 15

• OECD Family Database – SF3.1 Marriage and Divorce Rates. International comparisons of crude rates, mean age at first marriage, and pandemic‑era disruptions; handy Excel annexes. 7

• Our World in Data – “Marriages and Divorces” & grapher for marriage rates. Broad global synthesis with interactive charts; connects U.S. trends to wider patterns. 168

• UNICEF Data – “Is an End to Child Marriage within Reach?” (2023). Global progress and uneven pace; regional concentration and projected timelines. 17

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

How to Pick Up Women: Not hiding in the herd like a coward

I have several people in my life who are young and are just starting to be interested in girls, an anxiety that most men never get over. Forget about the modern attempt to rewrite human behavior; biology is biology.  Women, in the form of young girls, are meant to establish upon the human race a survival of the fittest kind of competition that is intended to inspire greatness.  I’ve told the story more than once about how I met my own wife; it was under very challenging circumstances, and I’m the type of person who doesn’t yield to anything.  Nothing is off limits to me.  So, I saw her in a car on a date with another guy, and I knocked on the window, essentially asking her to marry me.  And we’ve been married now for nearly 38 years.  I would advise all young people concerned about attracting young girls to be confident and direct.  Because here’s the secret.  Women don’t like slugs.  If you are outgoing, most women will want to leverage whatever attractiveness they have to reel you in, as they desire those qualities in their own family building and for their future children.  They may not be consciously aware of all that, but their essential biological necessity establishes it in their behavior quite clearly.  I think one of the wisest movies in the history of cinema came from the movie Scarface, starring Al Pacino, during the pool scene.  Tony Montana’s friend wanted to pick up a pretty girl at the pool and was being very obvious about his sexual intentions.  Tony tried to warn him not to be improper with her, but he did it anyway. He talked to her for a minute, then stuck his tongue out in a sexually suggestive manner, as if all the young woman wanted was sexual pleasure, and she slapped him. 

After that scene, Tony tried to help his wounded friend by telling him that in America, you have to make money first.  Then the women will love you.  But not until then.  Make some money, show that you are successful, and getting women will be no problem.  That is generally true in most cases.  No matter how much radical liberals try to rewrite human behavior, that basic biological necessity holds.  If you are confident, women in the form of young girls will see a basic ingredient for success, and they will find a way to make room for you under any condition.  Because the chances are, anybody they might happen to be dating, probably isn’t very confident.  Another rule is that any mildly attractive woman is likely attached to someone, but most of the time, until she’s around 35 years old, she is always looking for someone better.  Always, even on their wedding day.  This is why many women are drawn to successful individuals.  It’s the way that the human race is wired to sustain itself perpetually forward.  The privilege to sexual interaction can be psychologically constructed toward perpetuation, but that won’t stop a wandering eye from always zeroing in on someone who has the potential for great success.  So I always tell young people, ‘If you want girls, make yourself useful, and they’ll find you.’ You won’t have to go looking for them.  If you are a successful young person, you won’t be short on opportunities.  However, you must be the genuine article. If you dress for success and try to smooze over unsuspecting women at the club with too much cologne and a cheesy outfit, they’ll discover real quick that you aren’t what you sold yourself to be, and they’ll check out fast and move on to someone else.

Of course, I’m not talking about girls when I’m talking about girls.  But essential ingredients regarding the human race.  Women are often the standard bearers for all existence. If you want to be associated with a good one, you have to be a person they think of as good.  And most women are disappointed with the men in their lives, because our society teaches boys to be not very good men.  Boys learn all the cosmetic stuff, but when it comes time to change the oil, they are lost.  I have a friend in his fifties who is recently divorced.  He’s a demolition derby driver, professionally, so he knows how to tear down a car and rebuild it from the ground up.  He does it for fun almost every day of the week and throughout the weekend.  Once word got around that he was no longer married, he had about 40 different girls half his age wanting to date him; it was really out of control.  Now he’s not that wealthy by any means.  However, he knows how to work on cars, and most of them have cars that need to be repaired, so he possesses skills that the other men in the millennial age group don’t have.   And the girls are very aggressive about solving that problem by wanting to date my friend.  As I joke with him, I say that being able to change oil is like being a millionaire in this overly progressive society, where feminism has been a joke and a massive failure.  He is the evidence of that.  You can’t hoodwink skills over fake charm; women figure it out really fast. 

However, that same approach essentially carries over into all aspects of life.  You can’t fake it, whether you are dealing with women or men; people are people, and they judge each other based on these essential truths.  And once you understand this, it’s good to separate yourself from the herd by not chasing around traits that you think will make you likable, but are essentially a waste of time.  I often discuss the Metaphysics of Quality, particularly regarding the back-of-the-train types, which are most people.  Where you always want to be is in the front of the train, where it takes courage to be.  Of course, women will be more attracted to you there, as opposed to the back, where all the others are hiding.  But it’s not just women; all people respond similarly, even if they themselves don’t have that kind of personal courage.  They are attracted to those who do.  So, it’s best in life not to associate yourself with others who are considered losers, but are hiding that trait under some premise of collectivism to disguise their cowardly behavior, which reveals them to be back-of-the-train types, rather than leaders from the front.  As Tony Montana said in Scarface, to get the women in America, you have to make the money.  But even more than that, you have to be willing to emerge from the crowd and show a confidence that can achieve success, whether it’s making millions of dollars or just being able to change the oil in a car.  Apparently, millennial women are very stressed about being able to change oil. The bar for success has significantly lowered over the years, as it used to be that all young men could change their own oil.  But being able to do something better than everyone else is the key to getting opportunities in life.  And those who separate themselves from the masses have much better lives, in just about every case. 

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

Yes, My Wife and I Have Been Married for more than 35 Years: Danger is the key to happiness

On a lighter note, it has come up almost every day since the Nancy Nix fundraiser on Friday, August 4th.  Yes, it’s true; my wife and I have been married for 35 years.  It was at that event because I was sitting right next to the stage where some excellent comedians were performing next to my wife where I was the set-up for a joke that personal details about my life would be discussed in public.  I knew as I sat in a room full of people that I would be the subject of their comedy acts, but that was part of the fun.  After all, I am shy and like to keep a low profile, which helps me come out of my shell a bit.  So the comedian asked me how long my wife and I had been married, assuming we were much younger than we were.  He was working on a joke that poked fun at our conservative nature.  My wife is attractive, and it’s always an assumption that people make when they meet us in person that there must be some interesting story and that premarital sex would likely be involved.  That’s where the comedian was going with the line of questioning.  He asked how long we had been married.  I told him 35 years.  There was a bit of a gasp from the audience and in his face because it blew his set-up.  People don’t think we are that old, but we are.  And the following line of questioning was that we have kids in their 30s, which is also unusual.  Because his joke required us to have children older than our marriage, and in our case, that just wasn’t possible.  So to recover from this mild disappointment, he asked me if we ever argue, assuming that I would say the typical thing for a long-standing marriage, that we get along great and love each other emphatically.  My response was that we argue daily, which drew a laugh because everyone assumes conflict is destructive for a marriage.  But it’s the only way I can have a relationship with anybody, especially a wife. 

Since that nice fundraiser, I have been asked about the length of our marriage and whether it was true that my wife and I argue daily or if it was all just a joke from many of the people there.  No, it’s true; we have been married for 35 years and argue daily.  People wrongly assume that getting along is how you have a good marriage, and spicy conversation is the key, at least for me.  I like to fight; I will fight about anything, anywhere, about anything.  Peace is boring to me.  I would be mind numb if there was no conflict, so for me, conflict is a heavenly device, and the more conflict there is in my life, the happier I am.  However, arguing with someone doesn’t mean that you don’t love them.  It means you care for them; otherwise, you wouldn’t try to convince them of your opinion.  If you didn’t love or care for them, you likely wouldn’t want to convince them over to your position.  In the case of a marriage, through an argument.  And I can say honestly that my wife and I have argued over something passionately nearly every day of those 35 years and likely will for another 30 years.  The reason is that I am a very volatile personality.  And she is a very cautious person.  She gets what she doesn’t naturally have in me: a constant presence of danger and instability.  In her, I get someone to argue with.  It’s a recipe for a great relationship. 

I could tell stories from now until the end of time on a few examples, but a few that come to mind for context is one recently where we were in the mountains of Idaho driving down into Utah from a very high elevation with our RV in tow.  The wind was gusting so severely that there were cautions about going in it.  So we had our RV blowing behind us like a giant sail that felt like it would drag us right off the mountain.  We had much of our family in the car, four adults and a few children, and a dog, and there were very few guard rails.  A wrong move, and we could have easily been swept over a thousand-foot drop to the river below.  My wife was white-knuckling any handhold she could grab and was terrified with each wind gust.  She wanted me to stop immediately and wait out the wind, which would not happen soon.  We were in the middle of nowhere, and going backward was just as dangerous as going forward.  So I did what I did in most of those situations: I went faster and more aggressively and enjoyed the whole thing immensely.  We had another such incident just a year before, where we were outrunning an incoming snowstorm coming out of Colorado into New Mexico.  And the roads were covered with snow and ice drifting across the desert.  It was the same situation; we were hauling our RV at a high rate of speed, trying to outrun the storm after driving 13 straight hours to Roswell, New Mexico.  She wanted me to stop because we were sliding all over the road, and I had to go fast to outrun the cumulous cloud above us that was gaining steam from the setting sun.  It was night, and the lack of a sun fueled the storm into a monstrosity of more cold air, and it was moving across the desert at over 80 miles per hour.  She was furious with me, and I had a giant smile.  Those are what keep marriages together for 35 years. 

I would be bored out of my mind without experiences like that, and truthfully, she loves having those experiences with me.  I can only tell you how happy she was when we arrived in Roswell, New Mexico alive, or Vernal, Utah, with all our family safe after that scary trip on the mountain tops at over 6000 feet.  Surviving those kinds of things make the microwave popcorn taste a lot better when you get to camp and enjoy the luxuries of home in some distant place, in a favorite foldout chair.  And that’s also why we sat right next to the stage at that comedy event.  Being safe is not fun for me.  And if not for me, my wife would not push herself to expand her boundaries of comfort.  She is rarely comfortable with how I do things, but if she didn’t grab on like she does, cursing at me and all, there are a lot of crazy stories she wouldn’t have in life that have made our life together very interesting.  I could tell of one from Paris recently that is very funny, and it involved a bicycle and a few more of my kids as we were trying to catch a train.  We still joke about it at Thanksgiving dinner, which makes for an exciting life.  And while people make assumptions about safety being the root cause of happiness, I can report the opposite as accurate.  Danger is the best thing for a long marriage; to maintain a long one, comfort zones must be pushed to have a healthy relationship.  And zest is undoubtedly the key ingredient to frequent arguments.  Docile compliance would be disastrous.  Arguing is very beneficial in almost all circumstances in all parts of a life, marriages especially.

Rich Hoffman

One of the Biggest Challenges in Politics: Political groupies

I’m not the guy to talk to about cooking meat on the grill or sports statistics. Small talk to me is like getting stuck in the mud, and I hate it. And every time there is a holiday where typically there is a lot of small talk, I’m miserable in those circumstances. Normal stuff is the most boring kind of stuff to how I think about things. I appreciate it for the “life stuff” that it is, but I personally don’t like doing it.   What I do like talking about is how to save the world. If it’s a big all-encompassing topic, well, then I do like to talk about it. And because of that trait, I tend to know many people who are trying to save the world from their own particular view of it. That puts me in contact with many people who spend their time in leadership positions, especially in politics. As people who know me most understand, I have very specific rules for leadership that I apply to the world 24 hours a day, seven days a week for everything. There isn’t a minute in any day where I’m not thinking about leadership and how it can be used to make the world a better place, professionally, politically, or privately. Each week I speak to many hundreds of people, all of them in some leadership role. And there is a particular problem that they all have that never really gets talked about, no matter if the position is a political one or a professional capacity. The issues are always the same. I call their specific problem the “political groupies” that often loom in the background and seek to live through a leader because, for whatever reasons, they don’t feel comfortable in those roles themselves. Still, they want the prestige of such roles for lots of personal reasons. 

One of the hardest things for a politician to do is make that transition from an ordinary person to a public persona. To move from campaign mode into an actual leadership role without tossing away all the promises that were made to the public. Many political figures assume that they are two different things and that what goes on in campaigns isn’t practical for the actual leadership once the work begins. They end up split in many ways between campaign mode, which includes fundraising, and the business of consensus building to get votes. What ends up giving politicians a bad name is when they find that transition impossible to negotiate.

On the one hand, they have to put on a show for their donors, the people who actually go to the polls to vote, and the daily grind of whatever job they are doing. It reminds me a lot of a rock band where the sexy stuff is on stage where all the action happens, but most of the time, the business of writing music, getting good at performing on stage, and life between the gigs can be monotonous. Rock bands that are most famous often turn to drugs and other forms of personal abuse to reconcile their emotional swings. Politics is a lot of the same kind of challenge, but it usually doesn’t get viewed that way, which maybe it should. Building up the brand of a public persona is part of political life. And not losing yourself in that role is very difficult for most people. At best, it’s hard. Especially when there are people who come along with the political figures, and they help with the campaigns, they put out yard signs, donate money, and work behind the scenes in ways that may be helpful, but the emotional aspects of those friendships are often like an anchor to the public official. Anchors are great if you want to stand still in the middle of the ocean. But they aren’t so good if you need to move fast and dynamically react to the world. 

In all forms of leadership, I have a policy of hands-off. I will seek out leaders, but once they are in a position to lead, I give them full autonomy. The worst thing that could be done to such people is to undermine them with micromanagement. They need to think for themselves. For instance, out of those hundreds of people who I speak to every week, I do not give them my opinion on what I think they should or should not be doing. I will offer advice if they want it, but part of the reason you want to help put leaders in place is so they can lead. And micromanaging is not leading. Micromanaging is trying to live through other people because there is something in the micromanager that wants the glory of leadership without the responsibility of actually doing it. I call those types of people political groupies. They are like the groupies that you find in rock bands; they like to tell people in the audience that they are with the band, that they know what song they will play next, and in that way, they might get to be famous too, without the burden of actually being on stage and the pressure that comes with it. Many political figures have to learn that interacting with people in the audience is different. They don’t want someone who will respond to social media; they expect some representation of the brand that was created during the campaign to represent their interests at all times and having too personal of a relationship with the world violates the unsaid aspects of leadership that are so important. Being too accessible destroys the illusions of leadership that most people want to have. And what the groupies often do that is unintentional is that they act as a bridge between the theatrical role of the leadership position and the normal meat grilling audience who are always looking for leadership in everything they do in life. 

I personally like to help leadership birth its way into existence through people. If there are doctors out there who want to deliver babies into the world, I would best see myself who is the doctor who delivers leadership. But once they are born, I do not make it my mission to tell those lives how to live. To tell them how to be leaders. To do so is to erode away the validity of their own existence and rob them of the joys that do come from leadership. Often it’s not the various lobbyists who end up causing so much corruption among political figures; it’s the friends and tag-alongs who come with a candidate who holds back the fruits of leadership most because its impossible to take them on the complete journey, especially when it comes to building up the personal brand of the leader and maintaining that brand through all public interactions. It’s a balancing act that doesn’t get a lot of attention under any psychological scrutiny, but it is one of the most common frustrations that occur in political leadership roles. It’s a manageable condition, and there are ways that everyone can come away as part of the success story. And it’s worth doing when it all comes together. But it isn’t easy by a long shot. 

Rich Hoffman

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