To be considered a real man by most people you meet, you should have most or all of the following qualities:
- Have a 100% belief in yourself and your ability to achieve what you’re aiming for in life and in any given situation.
- Have a strong life purpose that you never give up on.
- Be loving and caring towards those around you, but not to the point where people take advantage of you or use you.
- Be a pillar of strength for those around you. When other people crumble under pressure, a real man can be relied on to remain strong so he can then fix a situation, create a solution, lead people to victory and so on.
- Be an alpha male rather than a lower-ranking male who gets disrespected by others.
- Be the kind of guy who “wears the pants” in a relationship, so the woman is able to relax into being a feminine woman around him.
- Make a woman feel protected and safe.
- Be able to make a woman feel attracted to your confidence and personality when you first meet her, rather than hoping to get lucky with a woman who will give you a chance.
- Be able to deepen a woman’s feelings of love, respect and attraction for you over time, rather than taking her for granted and hoping that she will stick around because things were good at the start.
There are many important points above, but if you’re aim to be a man is to be successful with women, this is the most important skill you will ever develop…
As you will discover from the video above, you can be a very nice, loving, caring and generous man to a woman, but if you’re unable to deepen her attraction when in a relationship, she won’t always be willing to stick around and put up with that.
Media Confusion on How to Be a Man
Due to the many different forms of media (TV, radio, print, music, websites, etc) providing mixed messages about how to live our lives, the definition of what it means to be a man has become jumbled and confused in today’s world.
If you look at the dictionary definition of the word “man” it doesn’t explain how to be a man:
Man (noun): An adult male person, as distinguished from a boy or a woman.
If you watch TV sitcoms, movies and music videos, you are being told to be all sorts of different men. So, who is right and how do actually be a man other than just being an “adult male person” like the dictionary suggests?
Men You Already Know
Undoubtedly, there will be several men that you admire and look up to in life.
It might be your father, a relative, a teacher, actor, writer or celebrity. If you look up to them and see them as being more than a man than you, then they are someone who is worth paying more attention to in your question to discover what it means to be a real man. What traits do they have that truly mark them out as being a man?
Are they living the type of life that you aspire to, or do they each have different traits that you admire?
As you may be realizing now, every man is not perfect at everything and thus shouldn’t be a role model for everything in your life. Each man will be excellent in certain areas of life and you should seek to learn from him about his area of speciality, rather than copying everything he does and hoping that it works for you.
Why Don’t We Get Taught This Stuff in School?
The simple answer is: Most teachers don’t know all the answers about “how to be a man” and are simply guessing based on what they’ve seen in movies and on TV.
It would be great if boys could be taught how to be men, but instead we are also left to go home and watch the mixed messages on TV and in the movies. When we watch music videos, we see even more mixed messages about what it means to be a man.
Did Your Father Teach You How to Be a Man?
If you’re like most guys, then your father probably taught you many great things about life, but wasn’t able to truly teach you how to be a respect, loved, wanted and successful man.
Without his guidance, you probably did what most modern men do: Looked to TV and the movies for the answers.
You might have even tried to find the answers by listening to the lyrics of your favorite musicians or bands, not realizing that most of the musicians playing music have their own insecurities, fears and issues with being a man.
Just because a musician passionately sings a song, it doesn’t mean that the message they are trying to get across is correct or effective advice.
Usually, it’s just a case of the musician not being able to achieve something and simply singing about how much it sucks. That’s not how to be a man.
A real man assesses a situation, searches for solutions, fixes it and goes on to achieve what he wanted to achieve. He doesn’t sit around crying about it and writing “Help me…feel sorry for me” lyrics.
Don’t blame yourself for turning to movies for the answers though; pretty much everyone does it.
Before I became the confident, respected man that I am today, I too looked to the random men in the media for clues on what it means to be a man. Then one day I realized that most of the people you see on TV are not perfect and do not have all the answers.
They’re simply acting on TV or doing whatever they’re getting paid to do.
Just because a guy is on TV and many people like his acting or TV show, it doesn’t mean that he knows the secrets of how to be a man.
He likely has all sorts of personal issues and insecurities in life and with women. To get evidence of that, all you need to do is watch a few documentaries about the private life of celebrities and you will see that most of them are a mess.
Have You Been Seeking Answers in All the Wrong Places?
In most comedy movies and TV sitcoms, there will be a “loveable loser” type of guy who is nervous, insecure, awkward, jealous and who is the butt of most of the jokes.
It’s entertaining and amusing to watch for certain viewers (not me). To entertain the viewers, the writers will create a situation where the loveable loser “saves the day,” has everyone wanting to be his friend and then gets the girl in the end.
It all adds up to nice little feelings of “Yeah!!! Good guys win in the end!” when the credits roll, but it’s not how the real world works.
After watching countless TV shows and movies where nervous, socially-awkward men win in the end, it’s no wonder that so many guys adopt a wimpy, vulnerable persona.
Many guys waste half their life hoping that people will sorry for him and say, “Heyyy! Stop being mean to Dave. He’s a nice guy” and then everything will be fine like it is in the movies. In the real world, most people don’t have time to take care of weak, wimpy people and will simply overlook them, take advantage of them or make fun of them.
Some kind-hearted people might give wimpy guys some compliments and stick up for him when others are picking up for him, but he won’t get his blockbuster movie ending where he gets the girl and everyone is high-fiving him, hugging him and hanging off his every word for saving the day or the world.
So, if you want to be a man that others respect, love and want to be around, don’t go copying what you see in TV sitcoms or movies and don’t think that the lyrics of latest pop (or rock) song has the answer either.
What Type of Man Do You Really Want to Be?
Do you want to be a bad boy, a jerk, a good guy alpha male, a wimpy nice guy or none of those?
If you are not clear on what type of man you want to be come, you will end up going around in circles feeling confused for many decades to come.
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Hi Dan,
Question please. I tend to not have a problem taking on more masculine traits when I’m feeling alright or feeling great. However, my confidence and self-esteem does tend to dwindle over time, mostly because of the stresses of my job. I tend to shift back into my submissive and beta-male personality as a result and it’s frustrating and noticeable by people, especially women. How can I teach myself to keep my confidence and alpha position in check when I’m under work stress? This may be an obvious yes but can women still be attracted to a generally great alpha guy when he loses his dominance after a stressful work day? Please elaborate. Many thanks!
Hey Jared
Thanks for your question.
About your confidence dwindling at times, watch this: http://www.themodernman.com/success/successful_thinking/3_common_habits_of_successful_men.html
About women being attracted to a genuinely alpha guy who has lost control emotionally due to a stressful day: A woman’s attraction will decline in direct response to a man’s declining strength. Women are attracted to the strength in men, not the weakness. So, yes, she will still feel some level of attraction for the alpha male, but it will automatically reduced (temporarily) in response to his weakness. If it continues to happen on a repeated basis (and she is in a relationship with the guy), this is what happens: http://www.themodernman.com/videos/the-3-stages-she-went-through-before-breaking-up-with-you.html
Cheers
Dan