Hey, what's up?
John Sonmez here from simpleprogrammer.com.
I am doing a man video today.
This video applies to men.
You can check out my playlist on becoming a better man and attracting women if you're
interested.
If you're not interested in these kinds of topics, by the way, you might want to just
skip the video, but you might want to listen just to hear this out.
I have been talking to a lot of guys about a lot of different issues.
I do a lot of coaching around guy stuff.
What I've come to realize is that there are basically three major fears that all men have
in life, three things that basically make it so that you feel not competent or not enough
or not good enough in life like the nagging kind of threats that—or the nagging kind
of feeling that you have every single morning unless you conquer these three areas of your
life.
I've condensed it down to three and I wanted to talk about those three things today a little
bit in depth here, just so you can understand these and see which one of these three, if
any of these three then you're lacking in.
Most guys, I'll tell you, are lacking in all three of these, and try to give you some—a
little bit of tips on how to overcome it, but I'm more so going to focus on what they
are so you can identify these things in your life.
Like I said, this comes from my own self, just examining—a lot of—in fact, a lot
of it comes from these videos, I'll have to tell you, come from me just deeply like really
examining myself and say, "Hey, you know what?
If I pull back the curtain, what is honestly here?
Like when I honestly look in the mirror"—I have a video on looking in the mirror.
Honestly, you should definitely check that out.
If I look in the mirror and I look raw, and I just say, "Okay, what is it?
What is going on here?", this is what I come up with.
Then, you know, a lot of this also comes from, like I said, just working with guys and talking
to guys and talking about these topics, especially doing a lot of coaching around this area.
Again, let's talk about what I'm going to be discussing here.
These are three things that I would say are the fears that men have or you could say that
these are areas of vulnerability, like places that if you do not feel secure in this area,
you're not going to feel secure as a man and you're going to be lacking the kind of self-confidence
and self-esteem that you want.
There's three of them.
Let's start with the first one.
The first one is to die in battle.
It's like to have the courage—and these are all sort of things that you need to have
courage about.
These are all fears or places where you need to be courageous.
The first one is that, I believe, that every man sort of questions whether or not—I just
heard this that if you—on D-Day.
If you went to the beach, if you were storming the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, you had
a 50% chance of dying.
That was 50%.
You would go in kind of knowing this that you're probably going to die that you had
a high chance.
Would you actually still do this?
You could think of this as being a gladiator.
Would you be a gladiator in the arena and risk your life for glory?
Would you be a soldier currently and risk your life?
Back in the day, would you fight to the death with a sword?
I think about those times in history where you would have to make these choices or you'd
be a coward.
Would you be the coward or not?
I think every guy has to face this idea of like—it might be at a smaller term like
today.
It maybe good and it might depend on who you are, but maybe it's like, "Could I get into
a fight?
Could I get into a fist fight and hold my own, or would I be willing to or would I back
out and be a coward, and run away and try to save my ass instead of fighting like a
man?"
I think if you don't address this as a guy, you're going to feel like you're not good
enough.
You're going to have this nagging feeling.
From time to time, I always question myself.
I always think about this like, "When it comes down to it like if I have to fucking die,
if I have to fight to the death, will I do it or would I beg for my life?"
This is a question that you can't fully answer until you're in a situation, but you can put
in situations, smaller situations, that can give you some confidence in this.
Just how you live your life and your philosophy.
There's ways to secure yourself in such a way that you know that you would be willing
to die.
For example, with me, myself, I had lived my life in a way that was trying to build
security around my life.
I won't go into the details because I've talked about this in a lot of videos.
If you want some details, you can check out my video on the talk I did on Five Soft Skills
Every Software Developer Should Know because I have talked about that about overcoming
fears in that part of the talk.
The thing is like I had built my life around like trying to be secure and then I finally
realized that I need to embrace uncertainty and risk and start taking more risks in my
life, and like live my life to the point where I was like, "You know what?
I'm living my fucking life.
It means that I am going to die sooner or that I'm going to put myself in a more risky
situation, it's better than being a fucking coward and running away."
I decided to embrace that part of my life and to be a little bit more courageous, and
to be more brave and to be willing to die if I need to die rather than be a coward.
Some people say, "Well, that's not smart.
It's not analytical.
You should live to fight another day."
Maybe that's true.
If you're a man, you're always going to have to deal with that demon, that deep-seated
fear of am I able to put my life on the line.
Would I fight to the death or will I be a coward?
That's number one.
I think every guy tackles—has asked themselves that question of would—everytime you hear
of people dying in combat.
You think, "Would I be able to do that or would I be able to be a gladiator, or would
I be able to be a knight back in those days?"
You question that within yourself.
You got to know the answer or will I be able to even get into a fight and actually fight,
or would I run or would I give up?
Would I defend people that are weaker than me?
Would I defend my family?
Those types of questions, I think, is a question that every single guy struggles within.
You got to figure out the answer for yourself.
Otherwise, you're going to feel—if you feel like you would run, then you feel like a coward
and you're going to feel that deficiency in yourself all the time.
Everytime you wake up in the morning, you're going to feel that nagging deficiency.
By the way, before I get into number two, these are things you have to deal with.
That's why I'm bringing these out.
Next one.
Number two.
I think this one—I was trying to describe—figure out how to describe this one, but I believe
this one is to—it's a fear that you're not good enough to attract a woman that you want
to attract, that you're not attractive in some way.
Some manifestations of this, it could be "I'm not good looking enough, I'm not slick enough,
I'm not attractive to women, and I can't get what—I'm too afraid, I'm too shy.
I couldn’t go out and do this."
The reason why I've defined this way and, again, this could probably use some refinement
is because I'm trying to get—again, at this deep-seated fear or this deep-seated type
of what is the actual heart of the thing that puts that little thorn in your heart when
you wake up in the morning and you feel like you're not good enough, and what exactly is
that.
The reason why I defined it this way, like I said, is because I think that you could
be in a relationship and you can have relationships, you get a girlfriend, you get a wife, you
can have all these things and still not feel like you've conquered this because you know
that you couldn’t just go out and procure for yourself what you wanted.
It fell into your lap in some way.
It was a friend, a co-worker.
You met through something like this.
It wasn't like your aggressive action of taking charge and being the man, and you don't—maybe
even in a relationship you don't feel like there's true attraction.
You feel like the woman that you're with settled for you in some way or you couldn’t really
get her on your own way, or something happened or she's using you for your money or whatever
it is.
You don't feel like you've actually sparked that attraction and that you're worthy of
it.
If you don’t feel like—it might even come down to the fact that you don't feel like
you have options as a man.
This is, again, another one of those things that—the confidence is hit when you don’t
feel this that you feel like you're not worthy, you're not enough of a man if you don't feel
like you've got this area of your life mastered to some degree.
This was me, again, for some period of time.
I was really shy.
I was really scared.
Finally, when I had overcome this, I remember having this feeling of like, "Gosh, I finally
fucking like—I can finally like walk down the street and not feel like a damn pussy
because I could go and I could go talk to this girl."
It was something that I had overcome because it was dominating my life for such a long
time being fearful in this area and once I had overcome it I felt so much more of a man.
I think a lot of guys really, really struggle on this one.
Again, I do a lot of videos and talks about this because it is so prevalent, especially
the social anxiety component of this.
You got to find your security in this in all of these things.
Otherwise, you're going to feel this nagging down.
A lot of people try to get around this.
By the way, I had this whole discussion with a buddy of mine.
We were talking about how you're trying to get some money or try to get—or whatever
it is or stats in some way, but you never overcome the actual fear and so you're still
afraid.
Deep down like you may have gotten the result.
If you haven't an actually—if you don’t feel like you have the strength to do it on
your own, then it doesn’t count.
You'll always feel that nagging down.
The third one is to be what I would describe as being a self-made man, which I would say
that you can—you could say this as being an entrepreneur or starting a business.
Not that everyone has to, but that you can go and you could procure for yourself money
that you could—resources that you can build a life, build whatever you need to survive,
that you're self-made in some degree.
That no one gave you a handout.
No one gave you help that you needed.
Not that you can't never accept help from anyone, but that you could do it on your own.
That you could make money.
You could take care of your family.
You could take care of yourself and what I would call a self-made man.
You have to feel that.
A lot of people—a lot of guys would struggle with this if they have been given some kind
of inheritance or trust fund, but not just those guys.
Pretty much every guy struggles with this because you wonder like are you worthy for
this job?
Did you luck into this?
Am I fraud or do I have the skills?
Can I build my own business if I needed to?
Can I start over from scratch?
Did I earn what I have and could I do it again?
These are those questions.
That's the three and I think these are really powerful—like if you think about this and
you're really thinking about what are your answers to these questions, it's really powerful
and it would be transforming.
I don’t really think there's anymore.
Maybe there's a fourth somewhere that I haven't looked at, but I've sort of condensed things
into these three.
Let me know if you think—again, I'm drawing a lot from just my own experience.
Maybe these are just my biggest three insecurities that I have overcome in life, but I would
say that these are insecurities for pretty much every man.
I would say this is like the default set.
If you don't conquer all three of these, you're going to feel not 100% until you do this.
Once you do, then it changes the game.
It changes everything.
It changes how you walk, how you talk, how you live, because you feel like you are the
man.
I think there's—again, a lot of people have asked me about like becoming a man and going
through manhood.
To some degree, I think a lot of it is dealing with these issues.
Not that you'll ever perfectly conquer all of these areas.
I don't think anyone can perfectly conquer, but that you've got confidence and you've
made growth in all three of these areas in your life.
If you're missing one of them.
You're going to feel it and you're probably going to be living your life in such a way
as that you're trying to either make up for it or trying to prove it to yourself and to
the world, or trying to avoid it.
All of those behaviors, all of those things are going to prevent you from being authentic
and being yourself because you feel like you're not worthy.
You feel like you're not good enough.
That's all I got for you today.
Again, I don’t have huge solutions for this or really great solutions.
There are some, for sure, but what I would say is examine these things and see—really
take a good hard look and say, "Is this possible that—how much are these things, these insecurities
playing a part in my life and influencing my behavior?
What can I do to actually like overcome these and to really—I want to say not make up
for it, because you don't want to make up for them.
If you're living your life around a problem, you're making up for it.
That's not a good idea.
You want to deal with the problem directly.
How could you deal with these problems directly and get rid of these insecurities for good?
All right.
That's all I got for you today.
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Take care.