The Importance of Trusting Men in Your Circle

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Wayne M. Levine of BetterMen.org.

I lead men’s groups. I’ve seen the obstacles men face in developing trusting relationships with other men. These obstacles come in all shapes and sizes. But what they have in common is their power to keep men stuck…right where they are. The key to getting unstuck, to becoming a better man, father, husband, and leader, is to find a way through these obstacles, and to allow yourself to fully trust the men in your circle.

Why is developing these trusting relationship so important? Well, to become the best men we can be, we need to be in the company of other men. Many men feel far more comfortable in the company of women. That’s to be expected in our feminized culture. Most men of the last couple of generations were raised by their mothers, or other women, while their fathers were barely present. These boys didn’t receive their fair share of masculine modeling, guidance, and nurturing. It stands to reason that these men would feel more comfortable sharing their feelings, time, and trust with women.

So what’s the problem with that? If you’re still young, you may not have bumped up against the issues that will undoubtedly arise as you find yourself facing the challenges of long-term relationships, career choices, child rearing, mid-life, addictions, fidelity, and mortality, to name just a few!

Those of us who are longer in the tooth have had to confront our doubts, fears, and limitations as men who have been taught to rely primarily on women for advice. Women can teach us many things, but they cannot initiate us into manhood. For that, we require other men, fathers, and mentors.

Men who have continued to rely on their female significant others as their sole source of guidance, their only sounding board, or for their psychotherapeutic interventions, have seen their long-term relationships deteriorate. These men are asking too much of the women they love.

Those who have chosen to deal with these challenges alone have, more often than not, found themselves on the losing end of their own counsel. But those of us who have been fortunate enough to be introduced to the benefits of these strong male relationships have received the guidance, butt-kicking, love, and mentoring we’ve needed to navigate the treacherous waters of our lives.

Some of you may have already dismissed this notion of men needing other men. It’s difficult to see the need you may have for something you have never seen, experienced, or valued. How can you be expected to appreciate the benefits of something that our society has relegated to the shadow for generations? But I can assure you, each of us men have so much to gain through our relationships with other good, committed men. More about the benefits in a moment. Let’s get back to the obstacles.
Obstacles

I want to describe some of the obstacles men have to developing trusting relationships with each other by offering short composite descriptions of some of the men themselves. Maybe you know one of these men. Maybe you are one of these men.

Rocky is a smart guy. He really is. He knows a lot of stuff, and he’s not shy about letting you know it. Though he can be very generous with his time and brilliance, he goes out of his way to correct you, and to be the focus of attention, in his Mensa-like way. Rocky’s problem is that he’s so insecure, his mask of knowledge keeps people at a distance so that he never risks being known for the scared mortal he actually is.

Clyde is a victim. And he’s soooo good at it. Terribly convincing. At least he’s convinced. He’s got this story that he’s sticking to. And no matter what reasonable insight about his “poor me” behavior crosses his path, he has this uncanny ability, despite his intelligence, to thoroughly dismiss it. Though he’d pass a hearing test with flying colors, he actually only hears what he wants to hear and what supports the story between his ears that confirms him as a bona fide, certified, and verified…victim.

Biff is a pleaser. Very charming guy. Can’t say a bad word about him. AND, he can’t say a bad word about you. But that’s his problem. He’s a liar. Now, he would never think of himself as a liar. What a horrible thing to say! But that’s what you are when you don’t tell the truth. And in a circle of men, you’re of very little value when you don’t tell the truth. And whether those around him are conscious to this truth, they certainly have no chance of getting to know Biff or trusting him with their own truths.

Chip disappoints. He really did experience some awful stuff as a kid. Either or both of his parents, or other guardians, scolded him all the time. He couldn’t do anything right, according to the tyrants in his life. The problem is that Chip grew to believe it…all of it. Today, when he hears anything directed towards him he deems critical, all he hears is the bad people yelling at him. He can’t hear the men, he can’t feel the support, he just has to “get outta there, fast!”

Huey is angry. And he has every right to be, just ask him. When you listen to his stories, you find yourself getting angry too, just not with him…AT HIM! He makes such a big deal about nothing. But you better watch out. Like a junk yard dog, this fella just might choke himself to death at the end of his leash while barking at you. But he won’t bite. It’s just how he keeps everyone from seeing how sad and hurt he really is.

Fritz is great, no problems. Life couldn’t be better. Wife, kids, money coming out of his ears. Generous to a fault. Would give you the shirt off his back. And you’d do the same for him. Gosh, what a wonderful guy. Then one day, something curious happens. You learn that Fritz is getting a divorce, arrested for tax fraud, checking into rehab, or worse. It’s such a shame. If only he hadn’t been so self-deluded. If only he’d been honest with himself, you might have been able to help him avert his crisis.
Such a Shame

What all of these men have in common is shame. Deep down they’re convinced that something is wrong with them. That’s why they work so hard to hide it from themselves…and from you. All they’re doing, however, is recreating the conditions that brought on the shame. If they didn’t continue to see life their way, their behavior would make no sense to them. You might need to reread that sentence a few times. It’s crazy, circular logic. Unfortunately, many of us, on some level, are guilty of a little to a lot of this sort of thinking. Many of us have at least a little Rocky, Clyde, Biff, Chip, Huey, and Fritz in us. That’s why men’s groups work. We all have so much in common, we’re qualified to spot, say it, and hopefully support one another to fix it.
The Benefits to Trusting Men

Through my work with men over the years, I’ve seen the most unhappy, isolated, and despondent men reconnect with their emotional worlds, connect for the first time with other men, and develop strong relationships that have served them as they’ve continued to make changes in their lives.

By revealing themselves to other men, these courageous men have invited others in. They’ve learned to ask for help to become better fathers and husbands. They’ve owned up to their own fears and doubt, making it safe for others to do the same. And as they’ve come to know each other and help each other, the distance between them has diminished.

Now, rather than feeling all alone when a relationship has hit a speed bump, a business transaction has turned bad, or a child has become impossibly defiant, these men now have somewhere to turn, a man to call, and an opportunity to get the help they need to turn things around, sometimes very quickly. Though it may sound a bit dramatic, this kind of support is literally life changing.
Change Your Life

How can you go about developing trusting relationships with the men in your life, or with men you’d like to include in your inner circle? Here’s a short list:

    Tell the truth to your friend.
    Ask your brother for help.
    Thank your dad for doing his best.
    Invite friends over for a good talk, rather than too many beers.
    Work with a male counselor to discover your masculine power.
    Join a men’s group.
    Start a men’s group.
    Read books about male psychology and get to know yourself.
    Replace old girlfriends with new men friends.
    Risk looking like a fool.
    Tell someone you’re sorry for having been such an idiot.
    Be vulnerable and let someone you care about know that you want and need to be closer.
    Be a man others look up to and trust.

We don’t live in society that honors relationships between men. In fact, our current culture doesn’t care too much about its males at all. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take care of yourself and develop trusting relationships with a few good men. It’ll be worth every bit of your effort.

Viewers vs. Doers: The Rise of Spectatoritis

The college football season starts this weekend, and I won’t lie—I’m pretty excited. My beloved Sooners are ranked number one in preseason polls, and I quite enjoy settling on the couch on a cozy fall day to watch them play (when they win at least!).

But every once in awhile, say when the announcer shares the game’s attendance numbers, I get a small niggling feeling of discomfort. 80,000 people gathered to watch 22 men run around, throw a ball, and smash into each other. The appeal is not difficult to see—there’s something truly compelling about watching the most talented athletes in the world perform. But when you take a step back, it’s really quite odd, isn’t it? Two groups of men–the doers and the viewers—and one group is far, far larger than the other.
The Rise of Spectatoritis

    Here and there appears the aggravated case, completely infected, the fan who is nothing but a fan—a flabby creature, symbolic of the multitude, a parasite upon the play of others, the least athletic of all men, never playing himself at anything, a spectacle hunter, not a sportsman. –Richard Henry Edwards, 1915

During these odd moments I often think of an old book Kate picked up a few years ago at a used bookstore. Written in 1938 by Jay B. Nash, it’s entitled Spectatoritis. During the first half of the 20th century, leisure time had steadily increased, and Nash argued that because Americans had never before been confronted with such large swaths of it, the country had not developed a “philosophy of leisure.” Without this philosophy, people were falling victim to what he dubbed “spectatoritis:”

    The machine age has, of course, already supplied an unexampled wealth of leisure and what happens? The average man who has time on his hands turns out to be a spectator, a watcher of somebody else, merely because that is the easiest thing. He becomes a victim of spectatoritis—a blanket description to cover all kinds of passive amusement, an entering into the handiest activity merely to escape boredom. Instead of expressing, he is willing to sit back and have his leisure time pursuits slapped on to him like mustard plasters—external, temporary, and, in the end, “dust in the mouth.”

Nash presciently predicted that the plague of spectatoritis would only increase:

    Man can sleep too much. Granted freedom, many men go to sleep—”physically and mentally,” organically and cortically. Not having the drive for creative arts they turn to pre-digested pastimes, prepared in little packages at a dollar per. This has literally thrown us into the gladiatorial stage of Rome in which the number of participants becomes fewer and the size of the grandstands, larger. Spectatoritis has become almost synonymous with Americanism and the end is not yet. The stages will get small and the rows of seats will mount higher.”

One can easily see how the specter of spectatoritis has indeed seeped into all areas of our lives. Not only in the obvious things in which passive involvement has always been the norm–90 million Americans watched the 2011 Superbowl; 100,000 people watched U2 in concert in October—but in areas which were formerly forums of active participation. For example, in visiting a couple of “megachurches,” awhile back, I was surprised at how much the service (actually, they called it an “experience”—“service” sounds too boring and stodgy) resembled any other form of entertainment—people listened to the music, watched a video and powerpoint presentation, sat through a short message from the pastor, and left 60 minutes later. There were no requirements for participation or service of any kind. It was interesting to see that worship had become yet another thing to be passively consumed, as opposed to actively created.

A current trend in the building of new middle and upper class suburban homes is to include a “theater room,” a windowless room complete with large, movie theater-like chairs, a speaker system, and a big screen television. This is another one of those things that seems odd when you take a step back…a whole room in the house dedicated just to watching stuff. We’ve gone from having parlors for making conversation, to rumpus or recreation rooms for playing games, to rooms in which people sit silently side-by-side in the dark.

More than anything, the internet has contributed to the spread of spectatoritis. Online interactions are particularly insidious because they provide people with the feeling that they are actively participating in something, while in reality it is just another form of passive amusement.  The main form of “activity” in modern life is the expression of personal preference. Liking or disliking. While formerly you could only be a fan of sports teams, you can now become a “fan” of Dominos Pizza, presidential candidates, even “sleeping.” I find it amusing that some websites have buttons in the response section of articles that allow people to upvote or downvote readers’ comments. So if you’re too lazy to write your own stuff, and it’s too much of a burden to even generate your own comment, you can still “participate” by showing your allegiance to someone else’s idea. But giving things thumbs up or thumbs down is not real participation. Why? Because such participation is “external, temporary, dust in the mouth.” Because it doesn’t involve any risk, any putting of your own skin in the game. Because it doesn’t change anything in you or in the world.

You Can’t Become a Man from the Sidelines

    The personal interest in athletics has been largely superseded by an interest in spectacular games, which unfortunately tend to divide the Nation into two groups: the few overworked champions in the arena, and the great crowd, content to do nothing but sit on the benches and look on, while indulging their tastes for tobacco and alcohol.

    It is this last that is turning so many thoughtful ones against baseball, football,etc. This, it will be seen, is a reproduction of the condition that ended in the fall of Rome. In her days of growth every man was a soldier; in the end a few great gladiators were in the arena, to be watched and applauded by the millions who personally knew nothing at all of fighting or heroism.

    Degeneracy is the word.

    To combat the system that has turned such a large proportion of our robust, manly, self-reliant boyhood into a lot of flat-chested cigarette-smokers, with shaky nerves and doubtful vitality, I began the Woodcraft movement in America.” –Ernest Thompson Seton, creator of Woodcraft Indians, and a founder of Boy Scouts of America

Of course there’s nothing wrong with taking in a spectacle or two. As I said the beginning, I love to watch football, and I enjoy attending a minor league baseball game, movie, or concert from time to time. I do not currently have the privilege of enjoying the smug pleasure of telling people that I do not have a tv, and I enjoy catching a few shows each week. I like surfing the internet and sharing things on Facebook.

There are men who feel that the entire problem with males today is that they’re too obsessed with college and professional sports. But that’s as wrong-headed as thinking that indulging in a straight diet of passive entertainment carries no ill-effects whatsoever. Rather than suffering from spectatoritis, these men are inflicted by high-horse-itis.

No, a problem only arises when instead of being a supplement to your life—an occasional relaxing indulgence–passive amusements become a substitution, a way to feel better about something you personally lack.

Recently, William Deresiewicz wrote “An Empty Regard,” a searing op-ed piece for The New York Times in which he questioned our current unthinking idolization of the military. This near canonization of the troops began during the Iraq War with the well-intentioned purpose of not repeating the mistakes of Vietnam, in which opposition to the war translated into animosity to those serving in it.

Deresiewicz  is not against supporting the troops per se—rather he argues that we use them as our “national football team,” as a reassuring symbol that the characteristics of traditional manhood are still alive and well. “The soldier is the way we want to see ourselves: stoic, powerful, focused, devoted,” Deresiewicz writes. But it’s a safe symbol—a team we can cheer for from the couch without having to step into the arena ourselves:

     The greater the sacrifice that has fallen on one small group of people, the members of the military and their families, the more we have gone from supporting our troops to putting them on a pedestal. In the Second World War, everybody fought. Soldiers were not remote figures to most of us; they were us. Now, instead of sharing the burden, we sentimentalize it. It’s a lot easier to idealize the people who are fighting than it is to send your kid to join them. This is also a form of service, I suppose: lip service…

    The political scientist Jonathan Weiler sees the cult of the uniform as a kind of citizenship-by-proxy. Soldiers and cops and firefighters, he argues, embody a notion of public service to which the rest of us are now no more than spectators. What we really need, in other words, is a swift kick in the pants.

And this is the real danger of spectatoritis run amok—it allows us to experience vicariously the virtues of others, without having to cultivate them ourselves.

We can see this phenomena in the popularity of certain television shows as well. Deadliest Catch. Ax Men. Ice Road Truckers. These programs showcase blue collar men working with their hands, getting dirty, and risking their lives to support their families. The white collar man, himself a stranger to manual labor, gets a vicarious dose of blue collar manhood by watching these shows, all from the comfort of his recliner.

But these vicarious experiences are fleeting. They conjure up feelings of manliness for an hour or two, but seep away, leaving the spectator entirely unchanged. And the world utterly the same.

Discussing a manly “philosophy of leisure” really deserves its own post, but for now, a simple recommendation is this: every man should have at least one thing in his life in which he has some skin in the game, in which he is actually in the arena, and not watching from the stands. One thing in which he is a doer, and not just a viewer.

Bookend Your Day: The Power of Morning and Evening Routines

You’re a college student.

It’s midnight. You’re brushing your teeth and reviewing how the day went. And you’re disappointed.

You had planned to work out, study for an upcoming history exam, clean up your apartment, and find time to meditate.

But none of those things happened.

You woke up late. As soon as you sat down to study in the afternoon you saw some friends who invited you out to eat. And that night you got sucked into aimlessly surfing the internet while the dirty dishes sat for another day in the sink.

You spit out your toothpaste and vow to do better tomorrow–tomorrow you’re going to turn it all around. But the next day brings more of the same.

Does this sound familiar? Do you feel like you’re stuck in a cycle of good intentions but disappointing follow-through?

There are several things you can do to get unstuck from this rut and start progressing as a man again. Today we’re going to talk about one of the very best: “bookending” your day with a morning and evening routine.
Bookend Your Day: Why a Man Needs a Morning and Evening Routine

Darren Hardy, editor-in-chief of Success Magazine and author of The Compound Effect argues that a person’s morning and evening routines are the “bookends” of a successful life. Why is this?

Imagine a string with a series of beads on it. The beads represent your goals, relationships, and priorities. Tip the string this way or that way, and the beads easily slide off and onto the floor. But tie a knot on each end of the string, and the beads stay put. Those knots are your morning and evening routines. They keep the priorities of your life from falling apart and thus help you progress and become a better man.

Having an evening and morning routine:

Ensures the really important things get done.  While we generally can’t control what goes on in the middle of a day, we usually can control how we begin and end the day. Take advantage of this fact by incorporating your most important tasks, actions, and behaviors into your morning and evening routines. For example, I know many businessmen who refuse to check email first thing in the morning. Instead, their morning routine consists of waking up, getting dressed, and spending an hour working on their most important task of the day, even before they go into the office. This ensures they accomplish their task before the chaos and interruptions of the workday get in the way.

For me, if I don’t exercise first thing in the morning, I won’t exercise that day. I just don’t have time for it. So, daily exercise is part of my morning routine. Journal writing is another important thing for me. If I don’t have a specific time set aside for journaling, it doesn’t get done. Thus, journal writing is part of my evening routine.

Gives you time to moonlight. I get a lot of emails from men along the lines of, “I’m unhappy in my career and really dream of doing _______ instead. What should I do?” My answer is almost always the same. Don’t quit your job yet–moonlight (or sunlight!) and hustle in your spare time until your dream job becomes a truly viable option. The best time to do that is in the mornings and evenings before and after your current job.

Reduces decision fatigue. The New York Times recently highlighted psychologist Roy Baumeister’s work on decision fatigue. According to Baumeister, we all have a finite amount of willpower that we can expend during the day, mental energy that is depleted by every decision–big or small–we have to make. In our crazy, hectic, modern life, we’re inundated with choices. Should I check email or work on this memo? Do I surf Art of Manliness or The Economist? Should I lift weights or run today? Should I have Sonic or Arby’s for lunch? If I go to Sonic, should I get a coney or a burger? You get the idea.

By the end of the day, our willpower reserve is running on empty which results in us being irritable boors, making poor decisions, and taking the path of least resistance. When given a choice between going to the gym or playing video games, we’ll choose video games. Write 500 words for our important work memo or surf the web? Mindless surfing here we come!

While it’s possible to increase the amount of willpower we have at our disposal, Baumeister suggests an additional tactic in the fight against decision fatigue is to manage our mental energy more efficiently throughout the day. One way we can do this is by making positive behaviors or important tasks routine parts of our day. When something becomes routine, we no longer have to think about it–it’s set on autopilot. Instead of having to use willpower to decide whether or not you’ll work out that day, you simply work out because that’s part of your morning routine. The less you have to think about doing something, the more likely you’ll actually do it. That’s the power of routines.

Keeps you grounded. For me the biggest benefit of morning and evening routines is that they keep me grounded and sane. It doesn’t matter how crazy things get during the day, it’s comforting to know exactly what will happen at the day’s beginning and end. My routines give me a sense of control over my life and help me re-calibrate my psyche so I can be a more effective man.
How to Create Your Morning and Evening Routines

Review your life plan. Remember that life plan we crafted a few months ago? Dust it off. We’re going to use it to help craft our morning and evening routines. (If you haven’t created your manly life plan, take some time this week to do so.) Look at your most important goals. Are there any habits or behaviors you need to instill in yourself to achieve those goals? Make those behaviors or habits part of your morning and evening routines.

Maybe your goal is to write a novel this year. Make writing for 30 minutes uninterrupted the first thing you do every morning. If your goal is to learn Spanish, make studying a Spanish grammar book part of your evening routine. Perhaps your goal is to read the entire library of the Great Books of the Western World. Set aside an hour to read before bed. If dropping 30 pounds is your goal, make exercise the first thing you do in the morning.

While the tasks you decide to include in your morning and evening routines will vary depending on your goals, may I suggest a habit to include in yours? Every evening, review the day’s work and plan your day for tomorrow. In the morning, review your schedule and your long and short term goals. I promise that if you do these two things, you’ll find yourself more focused and will accomplish more during the day.

Make your routine firm. Evening and morning routines lose all their power if they are kept vague. You cannot say, “I’ll get up whenever and do such and such a thing for awhile or so, and go to bed when I start feeling tired and read for a bit.” These indefinite bookends are loose knots that are bound to come undone. Your routine must be firmly set in place. Wake up at the same time every day. If you’ve been getting up at a time that only allows you to shower and get dressed before heading out the door, then start waking up earlier. Set a fixed time that your evening routine will begin, and go to bed at the same time each night during the week. Know exactly what activities you’re going to do during your routines, what order you will do them, and how much time you will spend on each thing.

Adapt your routine as your life changes. While your current routines must be firm, they will probably change as you pass through different seasons of your life. For example, my morning and evening routines today are much different from my routines when I was in law school. And they’re different now that I have a baby, and they will change as Gus gets older. By the way, when you have a kid, your evening and morning routines will become even more vital.

While reading a book before bed remained a constant, the morning routines of Theodore Roosevelt changed through the different seasons of his life. When he was overworked and stressed as a state legislator, he hired a prizefighter to come to his room in the morning for a half hour of sparring to make sure he got in a bout of exercise each day and to blow off some steam. While serving as governor of New York, he also tackled the task of writing a biography of Oliver Cromwell, and the first thing he did each morning was to carry a stack of notes into his study and dictate the book for an hour or more to a stenographer.

When it comes to your morning and evening routines, be flexible and adapt, but try to keep a steady routine going in your life like TR did. Remember, morning and evening routines lay the groundwork for your success as a man.

Get inspired by the morning and evening routines of great men. When I read the biographies of great men, I’m always on the lookout for insights into their morning and evening routines. I figure if they’ve done something repeatedly every morning and night, it might be worth incorporating that behavior into my personal routines.

William Blake had this to say about morning and evening routines: “Think in the morning, act in the noon, read in the evening, and sleep at night.” It’s not bad advice. When I was in law school, I actually set aside time in the morning just to think about a legal issue I was trying to untangle for my law review article. My mind seemed more nimble first thing in the morning.

As secretary of state and president, John Quincy Adams skinny dipped in the Potomac River in the morning, always trying to see how long he could swim without touching the bottom (he got up to 80 minutes before his wife told him to stop). After putting his kids to bed, President Obama goes over briefing papers and does paperwork, and then reads a book for pleasure for a half hour before turning in.

As you read the biographies of famous men, take note of their morning and evening routines, and if you like something they did, incorporate their behaviors into your own routines. One place you can find the routines of some famous men–particularly famous artists and writers–is the blog Daily Routines.
My Current Morning and Evening Routines

Here’s what my morning and evening routines look like right now. Maybe it will be useful to some of you. Maybe not.

Morning Routine

5:30 AM: Arise
Put on gym clothes, contacts, and stumble to kitchen
Drink a glass of ice cold water and protein shake
5:40 AM: Out the door for workout (Monday/Wednesday/Friday: Weights; Tuesday/Thursday: Interval Cardio; Saturday/Sunday: Walk)
6:40 AM: Return home and shower, brush teeth, etc.
6:55 AM: 20 minutes of meditation, prayer, and scripture study
7:15-ish AM: Review my goals and day’s schedule

Evening Routine

My goal is to have lights out at 11PM. With that as my deadline, here’s what I like to get done before then:

9:30 PM: Review day’s work, review goals (long term and short term), plan tomorrow’s schedule
10:00 PM: Get ready for bed; take vitamins.
10:15 PM: Write in journal
10:30 PM: Read a book
11:00 PM: Lights out.

Do you have a morning and evening routine? Share it with us in the comments!

Lose with Dignity. Celebrate with Grace. (Part II)

On December 31, 1967, the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys met on Lambeau Field for the NFL Championship. Later dubbed the “Ice Bowl,” temperatures hovered at 13 degrees below zero, the turf was as hard as rock, whistles stuck in referees’ mouths, and members of the halftime band were sent to the hospital for hypothermia. It remains the coldest NFL game on record.

For sixty minutes, these rival teams duked it out, with each player digging deep to summon the fortitude to battle both the cold and the opposing team. With sixteen seconds left in the game, the Cowboys held a 17-14 lead, and the Packers had the ball. On 3rd and goal, Bart Starr executed a quarterback sneak with offensive lineman Jerry Kramer giving him the block needed to get into the end zone and win the game. The Packers had made it to another Super Bowl.

That block has been called the greatest in NFL history. Yet Kramer didn’t dance around or pull a Sharpie out of his sock to sign an instant autograph; he simply walked off the field.

There was no need for such outward expressions–the satisfaction of a hard-fought win was enough.
How to Celebrate with Grace

Last time, we talked about how to lose with dignity.

It’s a difficult thing to do, but in some ways, it can actually be easier than celebrating with grace. When you win a great victory or attain a noteworthy achievement, it’s hard to strike the balance between genuinely enjoying your success and not adding to your opponent’s misery or coming off as a smug braggart. Here are some recommendations on how to walk that line.

Should you celebrate publicly or privately?

This is one of the big questions people struggle with in regards to celebrating with grace–should you display your adulation publicly or keep it to yourself?

The answer to that question depends on what kind of accomplishment it is, and whether you are in direct competition with those around you.

When an accomplishment is of the type that places people into “classes,” (things like grades, salary raises, promotions, and try-outs) it is generally better to keep your celebration private (to be enjoyed by yourself and close family and friends). So for example, when the teacher hands you back an A+ paper, there is no need for a whoop and a fist pump–just smile and put the paper away. The more competitive something is, the more true this rule becomes–which is why people never talked about their GPA or rank in law school.

Rubbing your win in your competitors’ faces in these situations will not make your achievement any more real–it is merely an attempt to stroke your ego and tends to create rancor with your peers.

Of course there are situations where it is appropriate to celebrate in front of your opponents–such as the award ceremony or sports game–as the competition is the raison d’être for these events, as opposed to being unspoken.

Even when your success can appropriately be celebrated publicly, use discretion, particularly when using social networks like Facebook and Twitter. These mediums have made news-sharing so easy that some folks have gotten confused about what constitutes actual news. Most people genuinely want to hear about what’s going on in your life and your success, they just don’t think that having an awesome bowel movement constitutes a singular achievement.

Appreciate those who helped make it happen.

The humble man realizes that even when praise for a victory falls entirely on him, there were people along the way who helped make it happen. The star player thanks the team; the boss thanks his employees.

Show gratitude in general.

Celebrations come off as smug when the victor acts as if he were entitled to the success he’s found. The dignified man is proud of the work he did to get where he is, while also being forever grateful that he was in the right spot at the right time and a confluence of factors came together in his favor.

Acknowledge the loser.

Shake the hand of your fallen opponent. If you chat, focus on the game itself, instead of on the outcome. And as an old Esquire etiquette guide advises, “In the conventional exchange of remarks at game’s end, the good loser compliments the winner on his skill and the good winner sympathizes with the loser on his luck.”

Don’t disparage your victory.

The man who trivializes his win can be as much of a pain as the one who lords it over you. While acting like you didn’t deserve to win or it isn’t a big deal might seem like the “nice” thing to do or something that will deflect attention, it only ends up making the victor look even better–”Not only did he win, he’s so above it all he doesn’t even care!” And it adds insult to your opponent’s injury. As a loser, I want to know I was a worthy foe, and that you actually wanted to win, because I certainly did!

When George C. Scott won an Oscar in 1970 for his portrayal of George S. Patton in the film that bore the general’s name, Scott became the first person to turn down an Academy Award, saying he was not in competition with other actors and that the ceremony constituted a “two hour meat parade.” This surprising move put more attention on Scott, not less (it dominated the news for a couple of weeks–even garnering the cover of Time), and it sent a message to the other nominees that not only did they lose the award, they were losers for even caring about winning!

Share in the rewards.

When a gambler makes money, he often tips the dealer. It’s good karma. When something good happens to you, spread the love. If you get a great promotion at work, take all of your friends out for drinks on you.

Don’t do the “humble brag.”

Some people try to split the difference between celebrating something, and not wanting to boast, by employing the “humble brag.” The humble brag is where you’re really boasting about something, but you try to disguise this fact by throwing in a complaint or a self-deprecating aside.

Humble bragging is especially popular on social outlets like Twitter and Facebook. Here are some examples compiled by the Twitter account Humblebrag:
Humble brags are so prevalent on things like Twitter and Facebook because folks sometimes use these platforms not to share updates, but to craft a persona and shape the way others see them. A humble brag is typically used online in order to share “news” that isn’t really news at all, but serves to show people that you’re doing something cool, and you’re the kind of person who does X.

Whether you’re sharing news of your success in the real world or online, it’s best to deliver it straight up. You may worry about coming off as smug, but it’s actually better to come off as smug, than to appear as someone who’s smug but trying to hide it. People are more annoyed by duplicity than pride.

Really, the best rule to follow here is one that will serve you well in all areas of your life: if you feel you have to cover up what you’re doing, even a little, that’s a sign you shouldn’t be doing it at all.

Resist the “How do you like me now?!” impulse.

When you achieve something that people all along the way doubted you could do, it’s very tempting to rub it in their faces. “How do you like me now, haters?!” And undoubtedly, talking about the obstacles that stood in your way on the road to the top can be appropriate, especially when it serves as inspiration to others. It’s neat to hear that some successful upstart got turned down 30 times by investors before becoming a billionaire dollar biz. But this shouldn’t be the focus of your celebration; otherwise, this behavior inevitably makes you look bitter and tarnishes your reputation.

Exhibit A: Michael Jordan’s Hall of Fame acceptance speech. Jordan could have given a speech like those who preceded him the night he was inducted—John Stockton and David Robinson. Their speeches were filled with gratitude for those who had helped them during their illustrious careers. Instead, Jordan used his speech to criticize the teammates who froze him out of the 1985 All-Star game when he was a rookie, the college coach who chose other players to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and the Bulls general manager for saying that organizations and not individuals win championships. He even flew out the now grown man that his high school coach had bumped him off the varsity team for his sophomore year, just to be able to point to him and say to his old coach, “I wanted to make sure you understood: You made a mistake, dude.” That was his message to everyone: “Haha—you guys were wrong!” But Jordan’s record already said that loud and clear; showing he was still bothered by such slights made him seem petty instead of magnanimous.

Don’t punish the loser further.

The victory is enough; there’s no need to kick a rival when he’s down.

After General Lee surrendered at Appomattox and General Grant shared the news with his troops, the men started shooting their guns in victory. Grant asked them to cease firing, saying, “The war is over, the rebels are again our countrymen, and the best way of showing our rejoicing will be to abstain from all such demonstrations.”

He also decided not to go through Richmond on his return to Washington D.C., as he did not wish to do “anything at such a time that would add to [the South’s] sorrow.”

Some folks cannot be helped.

It’s gentlemanly to want to avoid coming of as Smugly McSmugs Alot and to make an effort to celebrate with grace. But keep in mind that no matter how tactfully you handle your success, there are always going to be folks who feel you’re stuck up. They’re jealous and projecting those feelings on you. Don’t worry about it.
Lose with Dignity, Celebrate with Grace

The ability to lose with dignity and celebrate with grace is rare in our society, but examples of gentlemanliness remain. Case in point: Delaware’s “Return Day.”

The Return Day tradition started in 1791 when Georgetown was established as Delaware’s County Seat. Residents of Sussex County had to travel there on Election Day to cast their ballots. Two days later after the votes had been tallied, folks returned to Georgetown to hear the results announced. Carnival-esque festivities attended the reading of the winners.

The tradition still continues today. On the Thursday after Election Day, businesses and schools close and Delawareans from all over the state converge on Georgetown for the Return Day festivities. There’s an ox roast, a hatchet-throwing contest between town mayors, and a most unique parade.

The winners and the losers of each political race put aside the rancor of the election and sit together in horse-drawn carriages that make their way through town. And then the chairmen of the Sussex County Republican and Democratic parties meet together to literally bury the hatchet. Each grasps the handle of a hatchet, and together they plunge the weapon in a box of sand.

A great tradition, I think. For it symbolizes the fact that makes it possible for each of us to lose with dignity and celebrate with grace: no matter how small or large the contest, life goes on.

Manvotional: The Gains of Drudgery

By drudgery, I mean work that in itself is not pleasant, that has no immediate effect in stimulating our best powers, and that only remotely serves the purpose of our general advancement. Such a definition may not be perfect, but it expresses with reasonable accuracy what we usually understand by the term.

Now, if this is what we mean by drudgery, it is clear that we are all drudges. We all have to do many things, day by day, which we would rather not do. Even in the callings that seem to present the most perfect correspondence between gifts and work, such as those of the writer or the artist, drudgery dogs the heels of all progress…We show some perception of these facts in our common sayings, that easy writing makes hard reading, and what costs a man little is usually worth little. But few of us have any adequate sense of the immense toil which lies behind the brilliant successes of the great artist or famous writer. And the same thing might be said of the lives of great statesmen, politicians, reformers, merchants, and memorable men in all walks of life. Examine such lives, and the amount of prolonged toil which lies behind all the glitter of public fame is enormous, and to the indolent even appalling. If any man of the Elizabethan period gives the impression of having achieved great things with a certain airy ease and instinctive facility of touch, it is Walter Raleigh. Yet it was of Raleigh that Elizabeth said, “he could toil terribly.” The same thing may be said of every great man, so that it is small wonder that we have learned to believe that genius itself is simply an infinite capacity for taking pains.

When a man grumbles about the drudgery of his lot, then I am entitled to conclude that he has not learned the discipline of work, and that it is native indolence rather than suppressed genius which chafes against the limitations of his environment. Browning, in his poem of The Statue and the Bust, has laid down the doctrine that it is a man’s wisdom to contend to the uttermost even for the meanest prize that may be within his reach, because by such strenuous contention manhood grows, and by the lack of it manhood decays.

The clerk who does not strive to be the best clerk in the office, the carpenter who is not emulous of being the best carpenter in the workshop, is not likely to achieve excellence in any other pursuit for which he imagines his superior talents better fitted….I have little faith in the youth who is always crying out against his condition, and telling an incredulous world what great things he could do if his lot were different. The boast of general talents for everything usually resolves itself into particular talents for nothing. The incompetent clerk, in nine cases out of ten, would be equally incompetent as writer, artist, or speaker. If I were adjured to help a youth to some sphere supposed to be better suited to his gifts, I should first of all need to be convinced that he had performed faithfully the duties of the inferior sphere in which he found himself. The superior talent always shows itself in the superior performance of inferior duties. It is the man who is faithful in little things to whom there is given authority over larger things. He who has never learned the art of drudgery is never likely to acquire the faculty of great and memorable work, since the greater a man is, the greater is his power of drudgery.

But the gains of drudgery are not seen only in the solid successes of life, but in their effect upon the man himself. Let me take in illustration a not infrequent case. Suppose a man gives up his youth to the struggle for some coveted degree, some honour or award of the scholarly life. It is very possible that when he obtains that for which he has struggled, he may find that the joy of possession is not so great as the joy of the strife. It is part of the discipline of life that we should be educated by disillusion; we press onward to some shining summit, only to find that it is but a bastion thrown out by a greater mountain, which we did not see, and that the real summit lies far beyond us still. But are we the worse for the struggle? No; we are manifestly the better, for by whatever illusion we have been led onward, it is at least clear that without the illusion we should not have stood as high as we do. So a man may either fail or succeed in gaining the prize which he covets; but he cannot help being the gainer in himself. He has not attained, but he has fitted himself for attaining. It is better to fail in achieving a great thing than to succeed in achieving a little one, and the struggle that fails is, in any case, to be preferred to the stolidity which never aspires. And why? Because the struggle is sure to develop certain great and noble qualities in ourselves. Thus, though such a man may not gain the prize he sought, he has gained a command over his chance desires, a discipline of thought, a power of patient application, a steadiness of will and purpose, which will stand him in good stead throughout whatever toils his life may know in the hidden years which lie before it. And even if he gain the prize he sought, the real prize is found not in a degree, a certificate, a brief taste of applause on a commemoration day, but in the deeper strength of soul, the wider range of wisdom, which the long discipline of unflagging effort has taught him. So true is this, that Lessing, who was among the wisest of thinkers, said, that if he had to choose between the attainment of truth and the search for truth, he would prefer the latter. The true gain is always in the struggle, not the prize. What we become must always rank as a far higher question than what we get.

Lessons in Manliness from Charles Atlas

“Let Me Prove in 7 Days That I Can Make You a New Man!”

“The Insult That Made a Man Out of Mac”

“Hey, Skinny! Yer Ribs Are Showing!”

It’s an ad the majority of readers out there can easily conjure up in their heads. A cartoon of a skinny, 97-pound weakling who gets sand kicked in his face by a beefcake, uses the moment as inspiration to build his body, and comes back to the beach to give the bully his belated comeuppance.

The name associated with that image is just as familiar as the ad itself: Charles Atlas.

That these two images go hand-in-hand may have led you to see Atlas the man as a cartoonish caricature, or to view him in the light of the thousands of sometimes shady modern-day fitness hucksters who have taken Atlas’ old mail-order business model and ramped it up for the online age.

But Atlas was that true rarity, a man equal to the marketing hype—the real deal. He was a scrawny immigrant kid who transformed his body and launched a fitness revolution by creating a 12-lesson exercise course that was translated into seven languages and adopted by millions around the world, including King George VI, Joe DiMaggio, and Rocky Marciano. Even Mahatma Gandhi wrote to inquire about the program—no kidding!  The mail-order business Atlas started has now been around for 82 years (although it’s currently run by others—Atlas died in 1972), and thousands continue to look to his program for a way to get in shape.

For the men who lost confidence in themselves during the Great Depression, Charles Atlas was a source of hope and inspiration. Today he remains a symbol of virile strength and vitality, and his life offers us several lessons in manliness.

Lessons in Manliness from Charles Atlas
Turn your weaknesses into strengths.

Charles Atlas was born Angelo Siciliano in Acri, Italy in 1893. When he was ten, his family immigrated to America, and he landed on Ellis Island not speaking a word of English.

Little Angelo swore he’d do great things, but his prospects didn’t look too promising. He was a skinny, sickly, slope-shouldered boy–easy pickings for the bullies in his tough Brooklyn neighborhood. Coming home one Halloween night, a bully beat him with a bag of ashes, knocking him out for an hour. “It seemed like he was beating the brains out of me,” Atlas recalled. When he came to, Atlas lumbered home, crawled into bed, and said a prayer, telling God he’d never let another man beat him.

But the pummelings continued. At age 15, Atlas really was a “97-pound weakling,” and said he really did get sand kicked in his face by a beefy lifeguard in front of a good-looking gal.

When he turned 17, Atlas finally reached his breaking point and made it his goal to change his body so that he could finally stand up for himself. He experimented with different exercises and developed his own fitness routine, and when he emerged on the beach after months of training, his friends were astonished at his transformation. “You look like that statue of Atlas on top of the Atlas Hotel!” one exclaimed. (When he later legally changed his name, he paired that heroic moniker with “Charlie,” a childhood nickname.)

From an auspicious start, Atlas built his body into a man’s whose measurements would be buried as part of the Crypt of Civilization at Oglethorpe University, which won’t be opened until 8113. He turned his most hated-weakness into his most famous strength.
Be open to inspiration.

How did Atlas go from a scrawny kid to what one scientist called, “the absolute masculine ideal?” From inspiration he received at a museum and a zoo, respectively.

While on a school field trip to the Brooklyn Museum, Atlas gazed with wonder at the statues of Greek gods, focusing particularly on the muscular physique of Hercules. He asked his teacher how he could build a similar body, and he suggested that the young man try lifting weights.

So Atlas began a diligent exercise program. He couldn’t afford to buy weights, so he jury-rigged some together at home and used them every morning. But after months of training, he wasn’t at all satisfied with the results—his body was still lean and lanky. Young Atlas wondered how to proceed.

The answer came as he was walking through the Bronx Zoo—a place he would often go to think. As he stopped to admire the lion exhibit, he saw that jungle beast stretch, and observed the way in which its “muscles ran around like rabbits under a rug.” That’s when his light bulb went off: The lion was strong but had never used a barbell or any exercise equipment. “He’s been pitting one muscle against each other!” Atlas thought.

Atlas went home, deciding to try something different—“working out” like the lion did. He discarded his weights and developed a new exercise program for himself—this one based on isometric exercises.  Pushing one arm against the other, push-ups, sit-ups, squats, leg lifts, and so on.

Atlas’ business partner, Charles Roman, said that Atlas continued to observe animals his whole life, always on the lookout for a bit of inspiration on how he might improve his fitness regimen.
Carve out your own path.

Many men these days are constantly looking to other people to give them a plan for every aspect of their lives, but sometimes the best plan is the one you create yourself!

In the early 20th century, the use of weights and barbells was just catching on, and bodybuilding was a fringe movement—strongmen were curiosities who performed at carnival sideshows. That’s where Atlas saw the most famous of the oldtime strongmen—Eugen Sandow. Atlas used Sandow as inspiration and tried lifting weights like his hero. He also experimented with pulleys, calisthenics, and other exercise programs that were popular at the time.

When these methods did not yield the results he was looking for, Atlas stopped trying the established regimens, and created one of his own. While isometric exercises had been around for thousands of years as part of disciplines like yoga, and were popular among professional strongmen, it was a relatively unknown approach to most Americans. Atlas self-reliantly experimented with and put together his own exercise routine. And he was able to put these time-honored exercises into a program that could be followed by the average joe. He came up with a way to make fitness truly accessible—his course was so popular because it required no equipment whatsoever and could be performed by anyone in their own home.

Atlas went against the grain, and in so doing, not only found success himself, but launched a whole cultural movement.
Always seize an opportunity…especially when it’s to work for yourself.

Having a skill or talent doesn’t automatically translate into success.

After building up his body, Atlas’ life didn’t immediately change. He continued to work as a leatherworker, before quitting to take a job as a janitor and a sideshow strongman at Coney Island. He would lie on a bed of nails while an audience member stood on his stomach, rip telephone books in half, and bend iron bars into U’s. But these kinds of stunts were common on the strongman circuit, and Atlas might have labored in obscurity forever had he not been noticed by an artist in 1916.

The commissioning of public statues was on the upswing, but artists were having trouble finding worthy models to pose for their sculptures. When the artist spied Atlas one day on the beach, he asked him to come back to the studio to pose for him. Atlas was unsure about doing it, but decided to see how the opportunity played out. Other artists heard about the man with the incredibly well-proportioned body, and soon Atlas was in great demand, running from one studio to another, and collecting $100 a week.

But modeling did not satisfy Atlas’ great restlessness and ambition. In 1921, he submitted a picture to the “World’s Most Beautiful Man,” photo contest which was sponsored by the founder of Physical Culture Magazine, Bernarr MacFadden, and he easily won the $1,000 prize. A year later, he won MacFadden’s “World’s Most Developed Man” contest, beating out 775 men in a showdown staged publicly at Madison Square Garden.  This time, the prize was either $1,000 or a screen test for the starring role in a new Tarzan film. Atlas took the money. He didn’t want his future to be at the mercy of Hollywood execs; he wanted to start own business and be in charge of his own destiny. A wise choice…after all, who remembers the name of the actor who starred in The Adventures of Tarzan?
Be humble enough to admit when you’re in over your head.

Atlas invested his $1,000 in selling his fitness course by mail. In the first two years of business, several thousand orders were placed, allowing Atlas to open his own gym in New York City. But in trying to run the two businesses at once, both of them floundered. Atlas realized he needed to focus on just one thing—promoting his exercise course—and that he couldn’t do it alone.

In 1928, his advertising agency hired 21-year-old Charles Roman to help create better ad copy. Roman came up with the idea of giving Atlas’ isometric exercises a snappier name–“Dynamic-Tension”—and formulated the now-famous 97-lb weakling ads and their memorable headlines. Atlas could see that Roman was a marketing genius, and he offered him half of his company, on the condition that Roman run it. The ad man agreed, and the rest is history. Roman created irresistible ad copy and booked Atlas promotional gigs; Atlas showed up with his muscles and charisma. The two were a match made in heaven.
Practice what you preach.

An enormous part of the appeal of Charles Atlas was that he didn’t just sell his principles, he lived them.

“Live clean, think clean, and don’t go to burlesque shows,” Atlas was fond of saying. Living the clean life meant not only exercising regularly, but keeping your room tidy, getting fresh air, eating healthy food, and avoiding tobacco and alcohol. Atlas himself didn’t smoke or drink, and on the rare occasion someone convinced him to come out to a nightclub, he’d spend the evening sipping a glass of milk and trying to convince other patrons to swap their beer for orange juice. Unsurprisingly, he held New Year’s Eve celebrations that provided carrot juice instead of champagne. He was also a tireless promoter of the Boy Scouts. And despite becoming a multi-millionaire, Atlas lived modestly; only splurging when it came to his beloved white double-breasted suits.

Atlas’ life was remarkably scandal-free, and his only brush with controversy, far from injuring his reputation, actually improved it. Bob Hoffman, who owned the York Barbell Company, sued Atlas, claiming that you couldn’t get an Atlas-like physique with just isometric exercises (which he called “Dynamic-Hooey”) or see a change in your body after just 7 days, and that Atlas was a fake. But the resulting Federal Trade Commission investigation found no evidence of false advertising or unfair trading practices, forcing Hoffman to drop his attacks.

Atlas was also incredibly devoted to his family and his wife. When she passed away in 1965 after their 47 years of marriage together, Atlas’ grief and depression were so profound he considered joining a monastery. But his parish priest convinced him to reconsider, telling Atlas his life’s mission lied not in the cloisters but in continuing to inspire young people.

The Father was not flattering the strongman. At the peak of his popularity in the 30s and 40s, Atlas received so much fan mail that he required a team of nearly 30 women to open and sort it. The letters, often written by young men, came from all over the world and expressed sincere appreciation to Atlas for changing their lives. Despite how large his company got and up until his 60s, Atlas always went into his office in the afternoons to answer some of the letters personally, and sign all of the replies himself. He would also sit and talk with fans who came by looking for advice.

As he grew older, be refused to let himself go, because he knew young people looked up to him, and he didn’t want to be a hypocrite and a bad example. So he kept up his morning exercise routine—50 knee bends, 100 sit-ups, and 300 push-ups–and at age 75, his measurements were almost identical to his measurements at age 30. He spent the last two years of his life reading his Bible and running on the beach, and died at age 79 in 1972.

How to Quit Mindlessly Surfing the Internet and Actually Get Stuff Done

9 pm. A college campus in the Midwest. Rob sits down to study. His inner monologue:

Okay, time to hit the books. I’m really going to get crap done tonight. Let me just sit down here and crack open my giant textbook. Mmmm, interesting, interesting. But I don’t understand this term here on pg. 307. I should look it up on Wikipedia. Okay, got it. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to check my gmail tab before I get back to the book. Oh, Amanda sent me a Facebook message, let me just get on Facebook really quick and write her back. Hey, the Art of Manliness put another article up. And I love pirates! I’ve got to check that out–I’ll just skim it really fast. That was good. I wonder if anything has happened on Facebook since I read the article, let me check that real quick. And I guess it wouldn’t hurt to give the front page of Reddit a fast little scan, and then I’ll get back to studying. Wow, this thread has links to a lot of interesting sites, I’m just going to click on a few…

12:00 am. Textbook is still open to page 307. Rob’s inner monologue:

Arrrrghhh! What happened?
Why Is the Internet So #$!# Distracting!?

Distractions have existed since the beginning of time, but the internet represents an entirely new level of itch. The desire to read Treasure Island and or listen to a radio show exerts a certain pull, but not like the force that keeps you surfing from page to page to page on the internet. Why is this?

Researchers speculate that evolution has wired our brains to be constantly scanning for changes in our environment; if a change is sensed, our minds direct our attention towards that thing. For our primitive ancestors this ability was a safeguard against dangers and predators. In the modern age, that sense has been hijacked by the constant stream of incoming stimuli. “Look, I see a bear!” has become “Look a funny video on Youtube! An interesting article on this news site! A photo of my friend on Facebook….”

So that may be part of it, although it doesn’t quite explain why when you’re siting on the couch reading a book, your mind feels an itch to check your phone or your computer. Indeed, there’s a bigger issue at play here. It used to be thought that the reward centers of our brains only lit up when dealing with basic needs, “primary reinforcers” like food and water…and, of course, those dopamine hard-hitters, drugs. But then experiments found that not only did money, food, and sex also activate these reward centers, even pictures of these things had the same effect. And most recently, an experiment done with monkeys showed that even a little bit of information stimulates our brains’ reward centers. And what is the internet besides a collection of millions of bits of information–hit after dopamine-releasing hit. The internet is really like a giant information slot machine. Every time you surf to a new page, you pull that lever, and wait to see what pops up. Pull the lever. Pull the lever. Pull the lever. Ding-ding-ding-ding. It’s easy to get entranced and lose track of time.

So what’s a man to do? Despite its sort of addicting quality, the internet is an amazing tool that most people absolutely do not want to give up. So you probably don’t want to chuck your laptop out the window, even if you sometimes feel like you do.

You can try to limit your penchant for mindless surfing through sheer willpower alone. But as we’ve discussed, your willpower is a finite resource which is depleted by every choice you have to make. Do you really want to use up your willpower trying to stay off of Reddit, when you really need it to work or study effectively? Instead, simply eliminate the decision of whether or not to screw around on the web from your available choices altogether, without taking a sledge hammer to your computer. Here’s how.
First: Perform an Audit of Your Online Time-Wasters

The first step in stopping the scourge of mindless surfing is to make a list of which sites you’re wasting the most time on. You probably already know what they are. Write those down.

If you want a more thorough audit, you might consider signing up for one of the many online services that show you how you spend your time online. Such as:

RescueTime. RescueTime is a paid service that allows you track how much time you spend on certain websites and even how long you use certain apps on your computer. You simply create an account with RescueTime, install the RescueTime program on your computer, and RescueTime takes care of the rest. At the end of each week, RescueTime will send you an email report that gives you a breakdown of how and where you spent your time while sitting (or standing!) at your computer. It also has some other nifty features like the ability to block distracting websites and create goals for how you want to spend your time online.

Time Tracker. Time Tracker is a free browser extension for both Firefox and Chrome browsers. Pretty simple.

    Download Time Tracker for Firefox
    Download Time Tracker for Chrome

There used to be a whole slew of free time-tracking plugins for Firefox, but it looks like most of them are dead. Such a shame. They were good ones, too. Support your developers, folks.
Quit Screwing Around Online Method 1: Block Time-Wasting Sites Entirely (AKA The Nuclear Option)

If you want to completely banish time-wasting sites from your computer, you’ll needed to get into your computer’s host files and do some hacking. Don’t worry. You won’t break your computer in the process. What we’ll be doing is simply telling your computer that these time-wasting sites live on your computer’s hard drive. Because these websites don’t really live on your hard drive, you’ll get a “server not found” message when you try to surf to those addresses.

What’s great about this method is that it blocks these sites across all browsers. It doesn’t matter if you’re on Firefox, Chrome, or Explorer, if you try to visit sites on your blocked list, you’ll get a message saying your browser couldn’t connect with the site.

Another benefit to this method is that it provides a pretty strong firewall to prevent backsliding into mindless surfing. While this method is reversible, it’s kind of a pain in the butt to change. Any time you want to visit your blocked sites, you’ll have to go through the rigamarole below and “comment out” your added lines (add a # to the beginning of the lines) in your host file.

Obviously, using this method is best for sites that you really think are pointless but still find yourself addicted to reading–sites where you’d rather do without the temptation entirely. If you’re going to use this method to block sites that you still want to read occasionally, I recommend having a set-up such as the one I use myself and outline at the end of the post.

Here’s how it works, using Facebook.com as an example:

Mac

    Open up Terminal
    Type  sudo nano /etc/hosts
    Enter your computer’s password
    To block your time-wasting sites, type in the following: 127.0.0.1   facebook.com
    Repeat step 4 until you’ve entered all your time-wasting sites
    Save the host file by hitting ctrl+o and then the return key
    Flush your computer’s cache by entering the following line: sudo dscacheutil -flushcache

Windows (Windows 7/Vista/XP)

    Open Notepad and click File –> Open
    Open up the following file:  C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC\HOST
    To block your time-wasting sites, type in the following: 127.0.0.1 facebook.com  www.facebook.com
    Repeat step 3 until you’ve entered all your time-wasting sites
    Save the file and close

Linux

If you’re using Linux, you’re probably a geek and don’t need some guy who blogs about manliness to tell you how to edit your host file.
Quit Screwing Around Online Method 2: Block Time-Wasting Sites for Certain Periods of Time

Another, less drastic way to avoid the pull of time-sucking websites is by using various browser plugins that allow you to block sites for certain periods of time. This option gives you the flexibility to plan periods where you want to work distraction-free and periods where you want to be able to surf at will.

This is also a good method if you want to limit how much you check your web-based email. You probably want to be able to access your email during the day, but maybe you only want to be able to check it at certain times. This method will allow you to do that.

Firefox

Leechblock. Leechblock is a super robust plugin for Firefox that allows you to block time-wasting sites in several ways. First, you enter which sites you want to block. Next, you tell Leechblock when you want them blocked. For example, you can set Leechblock to block your designated sites until 5PM on weekdays, but keep them available to you all day on the weekends. Another way you can set up Leechblock is to block certain sites after you visit them for a certain amount of time. So if you want to limit your Facebook browsing to just 30 minutes a day, you can have Leechblock block Facebook after you’ve reached your 30 minute time limit.

This is a fantastic plugin. It helped me stay focused while I was in law school.

But keep in mind that Leechblock only works for when you’re using Firefox as your browser. You can still switch over to Chrome and surf freely. So if that’s going to be a temptation for you, you’ll need to put blocker plugins on your other browsers too.

Download LeechBlock

Chrome

StayFocused. StayFocused is a super simple site-blocker for Chrome. You simply enter in your time-wasting sites and then allot yourself an amount of time you want to be able to screw around on these sites each day. When you’ve used up all your time, the sites you have blocked will be inaccessible for the rest of the day.

To prevent you from changing how much time you’ve allotted yourself to surf freely, StayFocused gives you a highly annoying challenge. You have to type this long paragraph, letter for letter, without making a single typo. If you make a typo, everything will be cleared from the text box, and you’ll have to start all over again. And no, you can’t just copy and paste the challenge text. I tried that. It knows when you’re trying to cheat.

Download StayFocused

Concentrate. Concentrate allows you to set how long you want to block specific sites. Add your time-wasting sites, set the timer, and get to work. While the timer is going, you can’t access your time-wasting sites.

Download Concentrate

Chrome Nanny. Chrome Nanny is the Chrome version of Leechblock for Firefox. It works pretty much the same way. Unfortunately, the developer of this extension recently took it down from the Google Chrome Web Store without any explanation. Hopefully he’ll bring it back or someone will develop something similar.
My Personal Set-Up

I currently have a screwing around firewall system that incorporates both methods.

I’ve edited the host file on my Macbook so that it blocks my biggest time sink offenders. These include news sites and web forums I enjoy browsing, Facebook, Reddit, YouTube, Google Reader. I can’t access these sites at all on my work computer. Yeah, I could change the host file back to what it was, but like I said, it’s kind of a pain to do that, so I don’t even bother. My laziness is actually a boon here. Huzzah!

If I want to check these sites out, I use my iPad. When I need to get work done, I’ll just keep the iPad in another room or drive to a coffee shop and leave the iPad at home. Also, by having a computer just for work, I find myself getting into a work frame of mind much faster than before.

I use the second, less restrictive site blocking method to limit my time spent on gmail and a few sites that monitor web traffic on AoM. These sites are important for work, and I still want to be able to access them on my work computer, but they can distract me from actually getting work done. I use Chrome Nanny (got it before the developer took it down) to grant me access to my gmail account and my web analytics during short time windows throughout the day.

By implementing these methods to curb my mindless surfing, I suddenly found myself with a ton of free time I didn’t know existed. It was amazing. Give it a try if you’re looking to be a more productive, industrious, and successful man.

What tactics do you use to reduce the amount of time you waste online? Share them with us in the comments!

Lessons in Manliness from Friday Night Lights

There aren’t too many television shows out there that portray men in a positive light these days. Men on sitcoms are usually dimwitted doofuses or cartoonishly macho. It’s not much better on TV dramas.  While I can point to books or movies that inspire me to be a better man, it’s hard for me to do that with today’s crop of small screen offerings.

NBC’s Friday Night Lights is a refreshing exception. Friday Night Lights is a show about football that’s really not about football. Based on the book and movie of the same name, FNL takes place in the fictional town of Dillon, TX and follows the lives of head football coach Eric Taylor and his family, the players he coaches, as well as a whole host of other characters.

Kate and I were a little late getting started with FNL. The series began in 2006, but we didn’t start watching until 2010. We heard about FNL‘s masterful writing and quality acting, but we never got around to watching the show.  When Gus was born, we rented the previous seasons and started watching the show from the beginning. We were hooked. The acting and writing was so realistic it was easy to forget that these weren’t real people. A few months later we sadly said goodbye to our friends in Dillon as we watched the final episode in the series.

There’s so much I could say about what easily became my favorite television show of all time. But what struck me most about the show was the way the men in Dillon, TX were portrayed. They weren’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination. They were human, and they screwed up, sometimes royally. But despite their shortcomings, most of them strived to be better men and to do the right thing.

I never thought I’d say this about about a TV show, but Friday Night Lights helped me become a better man.

There are so many things I learned about being a better man from the show, but here are a few of the big ones. If you haven’t seen the show yet, do yourself a favor. Stop reading this post and go rent it on Netflix. I’ve got some spoilers in here, and I don’t want to ruin the show for you. If you’ve seen the show, then please join me as we explore lessons in manliness from Friday Night Lights.

Relish the Underdog Role

    “Nothing’s gonna crush Matt Saracen. He’s like a little stinkbug, you can’t crush him. He’s tough, he’ll be fine.” – Coach Taylor about quarterback Matt Saracen

I love a good underdog story and FNL is filled with them. In the first season, we see sophomore Matt Saracen thrust into the starting quarterback position after star QB Jason Street suffers a paralyzing injury. The whole town writes off Saracen and the team’s aspirations for a state title. But Matt proves the naysayers wrong by quietly leading his team to a state championship.

A few seasons later, Coach Taylor is ousted from the head coach position at Dillon High and is given a head coaching job at East Dillon, a school in the poorer part of town that’s re-opening after years of being closed.  The rundown facilities, lack of funding, and dearth of experienced players squelch any chance at a state title, let alone a winning season. But instead of wallowing in self-pity, Coach Taylor relishes his underdog role and sees it as a challenge to become an even better coach. Instead of relying on fancy equipment and facilities, Coach Taylor had to spend more time working on the basics and developing passion and teamwork in his players. The result? After a year of rebuilding, an unexpected state championship.

Whether it’s football or business, always relish the underdog role. It keeps you hungry and humble. It frees you from the scrutiny and expectations of others, and allows you to do things your way, to get creative and bootstrap. Most importantly, it forces you to focus on fundamentals. Instead of seeing the underdog role as a disadvantage, use it as an opportunity to become a better man.

A Man Needs to Come to Peace with His Father

    “My mom asked me to forgive him, to be better. And you’re asking me to be better. I don’t know how to be better because he never taught me to be better!” – Vince Howard about his father

No man looms larger in a man’s life than his father. For better or worse, his influence is inescapable. He is our model for manhood. Thus few things elicit stronger feelings in a man than his relationship with his dad. I think every boy wants a perfect father. He wants the man who acts as protector when things go bump in the night, who teaches him how to break in a baseball glove and how to shave, who gives him advice on women, and who becomes a friend and confidant later in life. No dad lives up to their kids’ expectations 100% of the time, but when a boy’s father fails to even be there at all for his son, it can create emotional wounds that he carries into adulthood. For many men, coming to peace with their relationship with their father is the biggest step they have to take on the path to manhood.

FNL did a bang up job exploring the sometimes emotionally fraught relationship between father and son. Most of the players had issues with their dads.  In season one, running back Smash Williams has to come to peace with his dead father. Tim Riggins’ dad just up and left him and his brother. He tries to reconcile with his dad–still holding out the hope that he might be the father he’s always wanted–but sadly learns that his dad’s a deadbeat, and so he moves on. In the final season, Vince Howard grapples with his ex-con drug-dealing dad getting out of jail and moving back home.

But perhaps the most poignant example of a young man coming to peace with the relationship with his father is Matt Saracen. Matt’s mom took off when he was young, and his dad is a career soldier who has been gone on deployments most of Matt’s life, leaving him alone to take care of his senile grandmother and forcing Matt to grow up faster than most boys his age have to. When Matt’s dad returns home, the two don’t get along, as Matt is filled with angry feelings of abandonment.

After Matt’s father returns to Iraq and is killed in combat, Matt is forced to come to terms with the man he claims to hate. We get to see him go through all the stages of grief. In the end, he doesn’t forgive his father. Instead, he figuratively and literally buries the relationship with his dad and moves on with his life.

Coming to peace with your relationship with your father can mean different things to different men. If you had a good relationship with your dad, it may mean learning to see your father as just a man instead of a larger than life character. If you had a crappy relationship with your dad, coming to peace with your father/son relationship doesn’t mean you have to feel good about your dad or even reconcile with him. It just means accepting the bad relationship, learning from it, and moving on with your life without it burdening you.
Nurture Manliness

    “You are a teacher first, and you are a molder of men.” – Tami Taylor to her husband, Coach Eric Taylor

Coach Taylor loved to win football games. But watching the young players he coached mature and develop into good, strong men gave him even more satisfaction. Coach Taylor knew that many of his young players looked to him not only as a coach, but also as a mentor and father figure. Eric Taylor didn’t ask for that role, but he took it on because he understood that the greatest thing a man can do is leave behind a legacy of manliness by nurturing and fathering young men into manhood.

There are so many examples in the show of players showing up at Coach Taylor’s door in the middle of the night looking for help and advice. Without fail, Coach Taylor took them in. He didn’t handle his players with kid gloves by coddling them. He demanded excellence and would sternly rebuke his players if they didn’t fully perform to their potential both on and off the field.

We need mentors to develop fully as men. But at a certain point, it becomes our responsibility to become mentors ourselves and pass on the art of manliness. The great thing about mentoring is that the mentor often gets more out of the relationship than the mentee. In the last episode of the show,  Coach Taylor tells Vince Howard, a one time juvie turned star quarterback, “You may never know how proud I am of you.” To which Vince answers, “You changed my life Coach.” That’s legacy.
A Man Seeks Redemption

    “Every man at some point in his life is going to lose a battle. He is going to fight and he is going to lose. But what makes him a man is that in the midst of that battle he does not lose himself. This game is not over, this battle is not over.” – Coach Eric Taylor

The theme of redemption was woven throughout each season. Several of the characters fell on hard times because of their own choices and because of just plain bad luck. My favorite example of a man redeeming himself is slick-talking car salesman and booster president, Buddy Garrity. When the show first started, I couldn’t stand Buddy Garrity. He was just a sleaze ball. He was a drunk, he cheated on his wife, and spent his daughter’s college education fund in a bad business deal. Buddy also had a tendency to sow the seeds of dissension on the team and cause Coach Taylor unneeded headaches. You could tell he did it purely for the power trip. People like that really bother me.

I’ll admit I was happy to see Buddy get his comeuppance when he lost his business, his family, and his cherished role as president of the Dillon Panthers booster club. It’s always nice to see cosmic justice in action.

But then something happened. Buddy Garrity quickly went from being my least favorite character on FNL to one my favorites. Why the change? Because Buddy sought for redemption.

Buddy used his personal crucible as an opportunity to become a better man. Ousted from his beloved Panthers, Buddy swallows his pride and becomes a big booster for a rival of his high school alma mater, the East Dillon Lions. He opens up another business in the poorer East Dillon side of town and quickly becomes a part of the community. He takes in a former juvenile delinquent named Santiago and becomes sort of a father figure to him. And in the last season we get to see Buddy repair his relationship with his estranged son, Buddy, Jr. Finally, at Tim Riggins’ parole hearing, he stands up for a young man he had respected as a football player but detested as his daughter’s boyfriend and offers him a job at his restaurant, and his own shot at getting back on his feet.

There are such things as second acts in life. Buddy Garrity is a perfect example of that. If you’ve screwed up in life, humble yourself, and fight like the dickens to make things right.
Texas Forever

A recurring theme on FNL is the desire of the young folk to get out of Dillon, TX. They feel trapped by the town. They hate that everyone knows everything about them. And yet…they always come back. It’s a part of them. They can never fully leave it. I think we’ve all experienced that feeling. We want to explore the world and find new horizons, yet we long for the comfort of home and community. We want the freedom and the lack of responsibility that comes with anonymity, but we also long for a sense of place and belonging.

Tim Riggins has a catchphrase he drops throughout the series: “Texas Forever.”

Texas Forever began as a pact that between Tim and his friend Jason Street that they’d never leave Texas. But I think there’s more to the saying than that. It means never forgetting where you came from. It means holding in your heart the community that molded you into the man you are.

No matter where the branches of life take you, keep your roots planted in firm soil. It keeps you grounded as a man.
A Man’s Closest Ally Is His Wife

    “Marriage requires maturity. Marriage requires two people that will listen, really listen to each other. Marriage most of all requires compromise.” – Coach Eric Taylor

While on the surface Friday Night Lights was a show about football, the heart of the show was truly the relationship between Eric and Tami Taylor. It’s by far the most realistic depiction of a good marriage I’ve ever seen on TV. Most TV shows depict marriages in which the husband is suffocated and henpecked by the wife, or ones in which each of the partners is forever on the verge of an affair or the couple is sliding towards divorce. Instead, the Taylors looked like most married couples I know–solid, happy, and committed. They were confronted not with the over-the-top drama typically depicted on the small screen, but with the everyday struggles that strain most marriages, like balancing work and family, handling an unruly teenager, or just figuring out who’s cooking dinner.

Perhaps the biggest conflict between Eric and Tami was balancing their respective career aspirations. Eric wanted to coach football. That was his calling in life. And for most of their marriage, Tami supported her husband’s dream by moving from job to job. Without her support, Coach Taylor could not have been as successful as he was. But when Tami’s career in education starts to take off, her personal goals quickly become incompatible with her husband’s. Cue the marital tension, and the eventual self-sacrificing compromise.

Despite their relationship conflicts, Tami and Eric were committed to their marriage. They were always able to resolve their problems with love and respect.

Eric understood that a man’s closest ally and adviser is his wife. When he had a problem with the team, he’d often ask Tami for her input while they were laying in bed right before they fell asleep. (Kate and I have those same kinds of bedtime conversations. I’m sure most married couples do too.) He understood the power of a marriage mastermind. He saw his wife not as his inferior or superior, but as an equal companion that was there to help him become the best man he could be.
A Man Needs a Team

    “A few will never give up on you. When you go back out on the field, those are the people I want in your minds. Those are the people I want in your hearts.” – Coach Eric Taylor

Despite the popular depictions of men as lone wolf types, the reality is that men thrive most when they’re part of a team that’s united by a common goal and purpose. We need other men who will be there to push us to reach our potential and who’ll offer a hand when we fail. Knowing you belong to a group of men who have your back instills confidence and a sense of belonging and brotherhood that we all crave.

In FNL, we see the power of team take center stage. The young players took on challenges together on and off the field. They’d often meet on the empty football field with a few beers in hand to throw the ball around and just talk life. Sometimes they fought and argued, but if one of them needed something, the whole team was there to support him.

Two specific instances from FNL come to mind that showcase the power of male friends in a man’s life. The first is Vince Howard. When we first meet Vince, he’s running from the cops. But Coach Taylor brings him onto the football team and his life transforms. We see him mature into an honorable young man in just two short seasons. Sure, Coach Taylor’s mentoring had a big role in Vince’s transformation, but I think being surrounded by a group of good guys had an even bigger impact on Vince.

The second example is Buddy Garrity, Jr. His mom ships him back to Texas from California because he’s been acting out. After finding Buddy, Jr. in the aftermath of a massive bender, Buddy convinces his son to go out for the football team, knowing that it will help turn his life around. And it does. The East Dillon Lions bring Buddy, Jr. into the fold and give him the sense of belonging he’s needed.
Clear Eyes, Full Heart, Can’t Lose

I couldn’t possibly end a post about Friday Night Lights without extrapolating the lessons from Coach Eric Taylor’s iconic motto for his teams.

Clear eyes, full heart, can’t lose.

So simple and yet so profound. What does it mean? I think it means no matter what the score is on the scoreboard at the end of the game, as long as you can say with a clear conscience (clear eyes) that you played with everything you had (full heart), you can never lose.

And so it is in life. Our goal as men should be to be able to look ourselves in the mirror each night and tell ourselves we gave it our all. Even if things don’t turn out the way we wanted, there’s a peace of mind that comes from knowing you did all you could to succeed and you did it with integrity.

Are you a Friday Night Lights Fan? What lessons in manliness did you learn from the show?