Successful men do not fall all at once. They drift to the edge alone.

Todd Peterson, a former professional football kicker, was explaining why strong men fall when he reached for the wildlife films he loves. The Bible describes the devil as a prowling lion looking for someone to devour, and Peterson said predators show how that danger works.

"Who does the lion go after? Goes after the one on the edge," he said. "Goes after the one that's isolated or separated from the pack."

Peterson argues that same vulnerability holds for people: the one cut off from the group is the one at risk, because, in his view, God made people for relationship, not isolation. He points to an old proverb, iron sharpens iron, meaning people keep each other honest the way one tool hones another, and to the Christian idea of the Trinity, that God himself is three persons in relationship, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, working together. A man with no blood brother friend, no one who will get in the foxhole with him and tell him he is wrong, has left the herd.

Success speeds the drift, Peterson says. As a business grows, layers pile up, schedules tighten to the minute, and the leader decides he is too important for an open door. He rests on past wins, hears only praise, answers to no one, and starts to believe he is the smartest person in the room. That pride, which Peterson calls the same pride that caused Lucifer's fall in the Bible story, leaves him alone in what Peterson calls an ivory tower, and alone, he believes, a man is at greatest risk.

The closest voice is often the one men push aside, Peterson says. God gave wives to be helpers and partners, and Peterson says, "It's scary how often my wife sounds like the Holy Spirit." Yet, he asks, how often do men dismiss their wives, because, in his words, "we really don't want what she has to say factoring into the decision we're going to make."