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Let’s Take Back Masculinity

Have you ever run across something and thought, “That ought not be”?

Like the fact, there is poverty in one of the most prosperous countries in history or the fact that so many people in the world don’t have access to clean water, or when the government spends billions of dollars on frivolous pet projects. Whatever it is for you, you had a moment when you saw “it” and said to yourself, “that ought not be.”

For me, it was when I realized that one day someone, somewhere, decided masculine men were the enemy and the source of most of the world’s problems, and therefore masculinity needed to be eradicated. Or, to put it in one sentence, men are defective women, and if men would just become more like women, the world would be a better place. 

When this happened, the concept of toxic masculinity entered the lexicon. But it’s wrong. The men used to “prove” that toxic masculinity exists are in fact, not masculine at all. They are boys who can shave, pretending to be men, and are in fact, just assholes. 

The result is now there is a dangerously large number of men who either think they are the problem, so they do nothing to avoid making things worse. Or they are fed up with being judged for the actions of other males and decide to check out from society. 

When I say doing nothing, I mean they have stopped going to school, stopped working, stopped dating women, and stopped attempting difficult tasks. Instead, they descended into a world of fake war in video games and fake love in porn. 

But is it really a problem for men to watch porn and play video games? It is when porn gives a man an orgasm without intimacy, and video games give a man adrenaline without danger. In other words, men can get their natural instincts and needs met without any responsibilities or consequences. That’s bad because personal responsibility and acceptance of consequences are essential to masculinity. 

But this ought not be. 

The central premise behind the call for masculinity to be done away with is that men get all the breaks and are in control of the world. But this is not supported by an unbiased review of the data. What is true is that a small number of men are in positions of power and influence, and they do control many companies and governments. But the idea that all men, or even the majority of men, enjoy the same privileges is false. Here are the facts

  • Men make up the majority of the prison population 
  • Men are more likely to be a victim of violent crime
  • More men die on the job
  • If a man has sex with a woman and she becomes pregnant, he has no input into whether the baby is born or not. 

Again, there may be a few men orchestrating how things work and profiting from that control, but that is not the reality for 99% of men. 

One more “that ought not be” is not only is masculinity being attacked by the progressive side, it’s also been co-opted by the Bro culture. The Bro’s equate masculinity with how many women you sleep with, how much money you have, how physically fit you are, and how many F-bombs you can use in 60 seconds. The Bro’s are cartoon versions of what masculinity is supposed to be, and sadly way too many people fall for it. 

But no matter what side the attack comes from, the fact remains that masculinity is under attack, and that needs to stop. 

A lot of people and the culture at large say, “so what?”. Even if we have gone too far, isn’t it better to have men trying to shed their masculinity? The answer is no! In fact, there are no metrics that point to society being better when there are fewer masculine men. 

If you’re not convinced, take a look at the societal damage that has occurred when men check out and walk away. 

  • 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes
  • 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes
  • 85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes
  • 80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes
  • 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes
  • 75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes
  • 85% of all youths in prison come from fatherless homes. 

But one that really scares me is 7 million able-bodied men between the ages of 25 and 54 are not only not working, they aren’t even looking for work. And that’s bad. Because without a job, men get bored, and a bored man is a dangerous man. 

No matter how you look at it, doing away with masculine men does nothing but harm everyone.

What’s the answer? We must take back masculinity.

Take it back from those who want to destroy it and those who have co-opted it for their own benefit. 

I believe this must be done with an aggressive approach that doesn’t shrink back from having conversations with those who will want to shout us down or force us to cower in the corner by making rash and untruthful accusations. 

We must stop apologizing for being a man. For enjoying men-centric activities and past times. For enjoying being around other men. For communicating and dealing with emotions like a man.

The first step to taking back masculinity is to identify what it takes to be a good man and then pursue it with intensity.

I put it like this, Masculine Men are Providers, Protectors, and Professors.

  • Provide for our families, friends, and people we don’t even know.
  • Protect those who cannot protect themselves.
  • Professors teach and men are wired to pass on what they have learned so others will have an easier path to walk in life. 

I want to help and encourage men to become the best version of themselves instead of obsessing over what other men are doing or can do, to stop playing the comparison game. The fact is every man’s capacity is different, so all men need to focus on measuring themselves by the standard of what is their best. 

On a personal level, I’m deciding to become a megaphone to champion the cause of taking back masculinity and teaching men what it means to be a masculine man. To write, speak, podcast, and go wherever I can to raise the alarm that if we don’t take back masculinity, the world is in serious trouble.

I’m looking for other men to join men in this cause. There will be more details later, but for now, I have one question for you, “Are you in?”

 

Do You Know Why a Man is Successful?

WHAT?

Like the average man, I’m always looking for the “secret” of why a small percentage of men are successful. There are tons of books that all promise to have the secret. But I finally discovered the best way to figure out why a man is successful is to simply ask him. So I started meeting with men who are succeeding in life and asking them how they do it.

 

SO WHAT?

Here’s the thing, I discovered most successful men are happy to talk to you. In fact, they are just waiting for you to ask. I also found the one unbreakable rule, don’t waste their time. Show up prepared; even better, send them a list of questions you’d like them to answer.

 

NOW WHAT?

So I came up with five questions that enable me to extract as much wisdom as possible when I get a chance to talk to a successful man

 

  1. Who taught you the most about being a man, and what did they teach you?
  2. What has surprised you the most in life?
  3. What advice would you give to 18 year old you?
  4. How do you manage your time?
  5. How do you manage your money?



I’ve asked lots of successful men these questions on a podcast I used to do. 

Click to listen to some of their answers.

Decide What You’ll Never Do

Think about this scenario:

You’re at a trade show and get invited to a private after-party with an unlimited supply of free top-shelf liquor. The music is fantastic, and before you know it, you’re on the dance floor with an equally inebriated lady from the other side of the country when “IT” happens. The “IT” being she hands you her key and asks you to walk her to her room. When you get to the room, you open the door like a gentleman, and she invites you to spend the night. 

What do you do? Have you already decided? If not, there’s a chance you’ll do something stupid because ego, liquor, and being far away from home are not the ingredients of a good decision. 

Situations like this are why you must take the time to decide what you’ll never do. If you wait until you have to choose, you run the risk of being overcome by circumstances, stress, or emotions. It’s not hard; get a piece of paper or open a google doc and put this at the top:

I Will Never

Then write down every idea that comes to mind. No editing; start writing/typing, and don’t stop until you run out of ideas. The list will probably be longer than you expected and most likely will have a few common themes:

Keep your hands off other people’s stuff, especially their spouses

Pay your debts

Keep your word

Don’t take advantage of others

Moderation in all things

One of the best things that comes from deciding what you’ll never do is you can take the time to think through situations and then make a great decision. Great decisions are ones you can have confidence in which means you’ll be less likely to waver when your stress or emotions kick in. This works better than deciding from a position of fear. Not doing something only because you’re afraid you’ll get caught still puts you at risk of being overcome by stress or emotions. 

Guys, we like to think we’re logical instead of emotional when it comes to making decisions, but the truth is most men make decisions based on emotions and then try to find the logic to justify the decision. That’s why you need to decide what you’ll never do NOW.

PS

Here’s a great example of deciding what you’ll never do from the bible?

“I made a covenant with my eyes not to look with lust at a young woman.”

‭‭Job‬ ‭31:1‬ ‭NLT‬‬

 

Be Great at What You Do

 

‘It doesn’t matter what you do; what matters is how you go about doing what you do.”

This quote is from Nick Saban’s book “How Good Do You Want to Be?”. He wrote it after winning the National Championship while he was the head coach at LSU. He won that one in 2003 and he’s added 6 more since he became the head coach at Alabama.  It’s a great book if you want to learn how he does it.

The reason I mention it is Coach Saban is a great example of what it takes to be great at what you do.

But what about you? Do you think about how to be the best at what you do or are you more like Peter from “Office Space” and do just enough to not get fired?

The difference is all about what motivates a guy. Some people think the motivation to be great at what you do comes from external gratification. It’s true there are some benefits to being great at what you do. You’ll stand out in the crowd because competence is so rare these days. Which means you’ll have lots of chances to move up your career ladder or have other job opportunities to choose from because people have heard you’re great at what you do

But the best motivation to be great at what you do is more internal than external. It’s the simple satisfaction of a job well done, of knowing that you did the best you could. It’s an undeniable feeling that is difficult to explain but you know it when you feel it. The feeling is strong enough to make you want to experience it over and over.

But how do you become great at what you do?

It all depends on what your job is, right? Well, not really. I think there are 3 keys to success whether you’re an engineer designing a rocket or the electrician doing the wiring of the rocket

Dee’s Threes
Keys to Success in any Job/Career:

  • Be disciplined
  • Be organized
  • Have a positive attitude

Be Disciplined
This means you do what needs to be done whether you feel like it or not. I’ve had jobs I loved and jobs I hated. Both of them had tasks I didn’t like but had to be done.

Here’s what my favorite TV dad Red Foreman says about this. Click to watch

Be Organized
Most jobs have more to do than you think you have time to do. I work for a company that supplies parts to a major auto manufacturer. They keep such small amounts of raw material that a delay of even one day can shut them down. I have to coordinate the purchasing and deliveries of multiple outside companies to be sure we keep them supplied. It’s a lot to keep up which means I have to be organized. So I:

Write stuff down so I don’t forget.

Keep lists of important information like addresses and points of contact

Develop checklists. To be sure I don’t forget a step that could cause an interruption in the supply chain.

Have a Positive Attitude
Most jobs have days that are better than others. Some customers are better than others. A positive attitude is what makes it impossible to tell which kind of day you’re having or which customer you’re dealing with. A positive attitude is what causes you to say “we can do it” instead of “it can’t be done” when there’s a problem.

Those three keys will help any man be great at what he does.

PRO TIP

If you’re serious about being great at what you do, ask your boss to answer these three questions about your job performance:

What should I STOP doing?

What should I START doing?

What should I CONTINUE doing?

The great thing about wanting to be great at what you do is it’s one of the rare goals that isn’t dependent on others. You get to decide every day to be great at what you do. It doesn’t matter if your boss is a jerk or you’re a street sweeper, it’s your choice whether or not you’re great at what you do.

PS

“Do you see any truly competent workers? They will serve kings rather than working for ordinary people.” Proverbs‬ ‭22:29‬ ‭NLT‬‬

One More Thing

Listen to this song performed by Jimmy Buffet that’s all about being good at what you do. Then check out the interview I did with the guy who wrote the song, Mac McAnally.
What You Missed on Instagram from Playbook for Men

How Good is Your BS Detector?

Does the name Peter Attia mean anything to you?

Peter Attia is an over-achiever. He’s a surgeon, a cancer doc, and he left medicine for a few years to join a Silicon Valley consulting firm. Now he’s focused on helping people live longer.

If that wasn’t enough, he also found enough spare time to run ultra-marathons and swim round trips from Lanai to Maui.

He’s done some stuff, but the thing that impresses me is his BS detector. It’s off the charts good. He belongs in the BS detector hall of fame because he walked away from what looked like the chance of a lifetime. A job with stock options that would have made him tens of millions of dollars.

Peter Attia got a phone call in 2006 about the job of Chief Medical Officer for a small startup company called Theranos. The company was starting to get famous in Silicon Valley because they claimed to have developed a black box that could take a drop of blood and quickly provide a report full of health data. Information like if the person had AIDS or if they were likely to develop Alzheimer’s. Theranos was the first of what was being called “lab-on-a-chip” devices that would make blood testing more accessible and cheaper.

Attia had lunch with Theranos founder and inventor Elizabeth Holmes to talk about the job. He was curious about the technology because there was nothing like it on the market, so he asked all kinds of questions about how the black box worked. The answers didn’t make sense to him, so Attia asked if he could see inside the box, and Holmes told him absolutely not. This was weird because he had to sign an NDA to even get in the building, but the answer was no.

Attia passed on the job because his BS meter was pegging out.

It turns out Attia was right. In 2015 a series of articles accusing Theranos of fraud were published in medical journals and the Wall Street Journal. All the bad publicity turned out to be the beginning of the end. After a few years of investigations and lawsuits, Theranos was closed in 2018.

But that wasn’t the end of the story. Elizabeth Holmes was found guilty on multiple counts of wire fraud.

Peter Attia avoided getting caught up in one of the biggest corporate frauds of all time because he asked smart questions, listened to the answers, and paid attention to his gut when the answers didn’t make sense.

In other words, he used his BS detector.

What is a BS detector? It’s simple, you don’t believe everything you read or hear.

Instead, you do some research. You talk to men who are experts in the field. Maybe even read a book or two or three. And for sure, you don’t invest time, money, or energy in something just because it was on Facebook.

Men with great BS detectors expect to be lied to. This is one of those depressing facts of life you wish weren’t true, but the faster you accept that it is, the better off you’ll be.

When you expect to be lied to, you learn to ask “how do you know that?”. It’s the most powerful question in your arsenal. You want the answer to involve verifiable information, and you need to check out every fact or stat you hear or read.

There is so much information available now that the only reason a man should ever get conned is because he was too lazy to use his phone for research instead of watching tik tok videos.

Dee’s 3’s – how to deal with hard times like a marine

A man’s life is full of tough times; divorces, health problems, or losing a job. The question is not If it will happen to you but When. 

So step one is to accept that fact instead of burying your head in the sand or living like you’re exempt from hard times. 

Too many men, especially young men, have been raised in an environment that has them thinking their lives will be free from any difficulty. And if some difficulty does sneak through, the solution is to find someone to sue or have them fired. 

That’s how boys think, not men.

Men understand there will be hard times, so they need to learn how to deal with them.

Did you know some hard times you face will result from bad choices you made, some hard times will result from the bad choices made by others, and some hard times will happen because good decisions can have bad outcomes? 

Because hard times come from so many different directions, it means you won’t always see them coming. So you must develop the skills and mindset to deal with hard times if you want to be a man who survives and thrives.

One way is to incorporate the Marine Corp way of dealing with hard times into your life. It’s just three words,

Improvise, Adapt, Overcome

What does that even mean? How does it work in practice? Here’s a story directly from the United States Marine Corps Field Manual, FMFM 1-0 called “Leading Marines.”

“During Operation Desert Shield, as Marine forces began to expand their lodgment, one of the “greatest concerns was overland transportation. Doctrinally, the Marine Corps planned for moving support no more than about 50-80 kilometers from a beachhead port. Faced with double and triple these distances,… [Marine logistic leaders] resorted to a series of practical if somewhat unconventional actions to solve the problem.” By leasing as many civilian trucks as possible, virtually every truck in Saudi Arabia was thrown into some kind of use regardless of its age or mechanical condition. Dubbed “Saudi Motors,” the new transport fleet grew to more than 1,400 vehicles and eventually included 50 colorfully decorated 10-ton lorries, over 200 civilian buses, and about100 rental cars – everything from Toyota Landcruisers, to Mitsubishis, to Jeep Cherokees donated from allied governments.

It was this fleet, together with some quick thinking by Marine leaders that led to the establishment of a remote logistics base well beyond the distances “allowed” by Marine logistic doctrine. “

Think about what you would have done if you had been a Marine in that situation? 

Would you have said, “sorry, the Book says we do no more than 80 Kilometers”

Or

“We’ve never done it that way before.”

Or

“We don’t have the equipment or resources to do this.”

A man can’t think like that because it means he will fail to answer the bell when his family or others need him to step up and handle a challenging situation. So that’s why I want you to be the man who knows how to improvise, adapt, overcome when times get tough. 

Here’s what the process looks like

Step 1 – Improvise

The first thing you have to do when faced with a tough situation is figure out what tools you have and how they can be used in a new way. There’s a great line in the movie Apollo 13 that illustrates this.

The engineers are meeting to figure out how to get the astronauts home when somebody says the spacecraft was not designed for what needed to happen. Mission Control Chief Gene Kranz says ,“I don’t care what it was designed to do, I care about what it can do.”

That’s the mental attitude to improvise. 

Step 2 – Adapt

Once you figure out your situation and what tools you have to work with, you are in a new normal. Now you have to adapt or figure out how to move forward in the new normal. You have to think differently to survive. The biggest mistake you can make now is to fall back to old ways of thinking. 

Step 3 – Overcome

Now that you’ve done the hard work, it’s time to kick ass and execute. This is where you overcome your situation. You conquer it.

Just like a Marine.

 

Reverse Engineering Your Life

Before everyone had a GPS in their pocket, the old joke was a man would never ask for directions or admit he was lost. It was funny because there was a certain amount of the truth in it. 

The bad news is there isn’t a GPS for life which means a lot of guys just float through day after day with no real plan to follow. They make decisions in the heat of the moment without thinking about the future consequences. It’s like they’re taking a road trip without a map. Instead of having a planned route, they just hop on the road and make turns whenever the mood strikes them.

What’s weird is they’re surprised when they don’t end up where they meant to go and some are even pissed off and look for somebody to blame. 

That’s life for way too many guys and it’s not good, but there is a better way. So I want to show you a process for how to develop a plan to get you where you want to be in 2, 5, or 10 years. The time frame isn’t important, the important part is for you to have a plan you’re following.

But before we talk about planning, we need to establish some axioms about your life:

Playbook for Men Axioms for Life

#1: Your life is a checkbook and you write a check for it every day

#2: You must have a WRITTEN plan

#3: Everything in life costs something (time, money, etc.) and you can’t ignore that fact.

Those three axioms are going to frame the process of coming up with a plan. 

I think the biggest takeaway is nothing in life is free. Everything you want costs something of value, money or your really valuable asset, time. So choose wisely. 

Now I want to show you how to set goals based on where you want to go, not where you are. In other words, how to reverse engineer the life you’ve always wanted.

REVERSE ENGINEERING YOUR LIFE

Step #1:

Write out your priorities (no more than 7) and put them in order of importance. For instance:

  1. God
  2. Wife
  3. Kids
  4. Extended family
  5. Career
  6. Church
  7. Serving others

Step #2: 

Pick a day for yourself and your family sometime in the future and picture that day. How far in the future? I would say a minimum of 2 years and a maximum of 10 years. But it’s your choice, just be reasonable. Nobody can set goals for 30 years from now. What does your life look like? Ask the following questions:

Housing

  • Where do you live?
  • What does your house look like? 
  • What vehicle(s) do you drive?

Health

  • How much will you weigh?
  • How much will you exercise weekly?
  • What day will be your Sabbath?
  • What do your vacations and holidays look like?

Financial

  • Where do you work?
  • How much money do you make?
  • How is your money spent?
  • How is your money saved?
  • How is your money invested?
  • How is your money tithed?
  • What is your insurance package?

Marriage

  • How often do you pray together?
  • When is your date night?

Family

  • How many children will you have?
  • How old will your children be?
  • How will they be educated at that time? Public, private, or home school

Extended Family

  • What is your relationship like with each family member?
  • Do you take vacations together?
  • What about holidays/special days?

Friends

  • Who are your closest friends?
  • Which people have you dropped as friends?
  • What things do you do with your friends?

Learning

  • How many books have you read by that date? 
  • What other experiences have influenced your life (conferences, mentors)?

Ministry

  • What church do you attend?
  • How involved are you?
  • How are you studying the Bible?

I’m not promising you’ll never have any problems if you follow this process but I am telling you the chances of you ending up someplace you never wanted to go are almost zero. 

The best way to do this is when you have the time to really think through each question. 

Now grab a notebook and reverse engineer the life you’ve always wanted. 

PS

The late great Alabama football coach Bear Bryant kept a copy of this poem in his wallet to remind him about the value of a day.

“This is the beginning of a new day. God has given me this day to use as I will. I can waste it or use it for good. 

What I do today is very important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever…

leaving something in its place I have traded for it. I want it to be gain, not loss — good, not evil. Success, not failure in order that I shall not forget the price I paid for it.” -Hartsill Wilson

PPS

Thanks to Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church for the big idea behind this column.

 

A front porch is the perfect place to think, make a decision, or pray

It’s mid-September in North Alabama so that means it’s the perfect weather to sit on my front porch. 

I love front porches. 

The house I grew up in was a two-story antebellum with massive front and back porches. An angry tornado destroyed it in 1974 along with much of the area I called home but I still remember the front porch. The time I spent sitting in a rocking chair playing the game you used to amuse yourself with when you lived on a forty-acre farm far from your friends but in front of Hwy 72, you counted cars. The rules are simple, you pick a color and the other person picks a color then you start counting how many cars pass by that are your color. 

Sidebar; this game is much better if it’s male vs male or female vs female. The reason is most guys can only name about 8 colors so it’s pretty simple to determine if a car is your color. While ladies know about colors like seafoam or periwinkle. Which causes more time spent debating what color a car was than actually counting cars.

But that’s another story for another day. 

That house might be where my fascination with front porches began but I developed the love of them when we lived in Tuscaloosa. Our house had a huge wrap-around front porch with a swing. I got to spend some good time in that swing with my daughters and my wife talking about life, laughing and just hanging out. I have lots of good memories from that front porch.

I also learned that a front porch is a great place to think when we lived in that house. Especially when you’ve got trouble. Dark nights and a front porch are a great combination to help a guy figure out what went wrong and if it can be fixed. 

It’s also a great place to make decisions. I’ve spent dozens of hours sitting and thinking on a front porch. Sometimes doing what John Wayne said he was doing in one of my favorite movies “McLintock”, some “thinking drinking”. Pondering what to do next or figuring out what not to do. Which is really the most important decision. Most mistakes I’ve made are because I ignored the little voice inside me that said, “let it go”.

But a front porch might find its highest value to me as a confessional. A place where I’ve talked to God, yelled at God, begged for God’s forgiveness and cried as I tried to comprehend the depth of His love for me. 

I’ve started most mornings on my front porch reading scripture and pondering what it means to be a fully devoted follower of Jesus. Some days I get closer to that goal than others but every day that starts like that is infinitely better than the days that don’t.

Front porches can be found all over the world. From big houses on the banks of a river to stoops on a brownstone in New York City, but I like to think we southerners have elevated the activity of sitting on front porches to an art form. I know my best days are when I can begin and end them on a front porch.

Turns out, it’s also a great place to write stories like this.