My Advice to Young Men

to be truly powerful you don't have to go out there and grab things you don't have to go prove yourself all of it will come to you people will come to you women will come to you job offers will come to you money will come to you if you have this kind of inner strength inner power that I think is the ideal for young men today in the world these are actually very confusing times before I believe for young men and the majority of my readers to be honest with you are young men and I do a lot of Consulting with them so I understand the confusion that is going on because Traditional Values and traditional ideals of masculinity are evaporating and it's very disconcerting and so to me the most important thing here is to first of all Define an icon of what I would consider a virtuous masculine ideal for all of us to realize and think about because without a nice sense of unideal then we're kind of lost at sea we don't really know where we're heading we want to achieve or what we want to aim for in life and so when I think of masculinity or I think it means to be a man I think in terms of it's very weird but I have an image of My Mind of a particular Hollywood actor from the 30s and 40s I know that sounds cliched but let me explain it to you for a minute his name was Gary Cooper now it happened he was extremely handsome but the ideal for so long he kind of embodied this particular ideal and what this idea was he was very soft-spoken he didn't talk a lot he wasn't aggressive or pushy but he knew who he was he knew what he wanted he knew what was right he knew what was wrong and he stood for it and he didn't like assert himself and tell everyone you're wrong Etc but when he was pushed he he was extremely strong inside he knew who he was he was very balanced and if you're ever going to watch a movie and maybe you find old movies kind of stupid but this is a great one that really illustrates it and it's called High Noon where he's the sheriff of this town and he has to take on all of these kind of evil bastards anyway so to me the idea is you have a sense of control of your nature of who you are you know that you're not just about being aggressive it's not just about picking fights and going out in the world and kind of hurting people or pushing them around that's actually a sign of weakness true Inner Strength is something that's quiet and that's calm right and so you don't feel the need to push people to hurt people to assert yourself to show off to show how people who show off who show off how wealthy they are how many fancy cars they have are actually weak they're actually insecure they're actually incredibly immature and I talk about in the laws of human nature that when you look at somebody who has very extreme qualities like bravado like brashness like bragging about how great they are by bragging about how many women they've seduced by bragging about their fancy cars they're actually really weak little tiny people inside they're trying to cover up all their weaknesses all their insecurities with bravado but you as a young man you don't need any of that when you see it you're disgusted by it because it reveals weakness somebody who is truly strong inside doesn't have to show off doesn't have to talk doesn't have to say a lot that was the whole thing about Gary Cooper he never talked you know I say In Laws of Power always say less than necessary weak people have to talk I have to brag after some of these things if you're strong inside you let your actions do the talking you don't have to go on websites and show all the great things that your cars your money your house it speaks through your work for the things that you have achieved through the businesses that you have started through the books that you have read you don't have to do any talking your actions speak for themselves so let's have certain ideal certain standards of what we consider masculinity or to be a strong man actually are and to use that sort of guide us through life so one thing is if you're strong inside you can take criticism people who have this kind of fake masculinity by the moment you try and challenge them or talk to them or say that their idea these are stupid or maybe that they don't know what they're talking about they get so insecure and they like lash out they fight back and they yell we see all these kind of trolls on the internet doing that right but if you are truly strong you can take criticism you can take a mentor you can take somebody coming into your life and say this is what you need to do this is where you need to go you're not doing it right you need to follow this path instead of the one that you're on right the other thing is a true man to me true masculinity has deep respect for women doesn't feel the need to insult them to push them around to dominate them he respects them truly and he honors them and he almost has a kind of chivalrous approach I know all of this sounds very old-fashioned but you know these were values that came up through culture over hundreds and hundreds of years and they have deep meaning and they have deep import so having a chivalrous attitude towards women to me reveals inner strength and confidence the kind of thing that I think women respond to I don't think women respond to men they can smell that insecure man from a mile away and it repulses them they can also smell a man who has that kind of inner confidence the kind of inner security and it's deeply seductive and deeply attractive so having a sense of an inner strength of knowing who you are of not feeling the need to brag of knowing that these are the virtues that signify strength in our culture they become sort of your daily guiding post and when you catch yourself becoming all emotional and all panicky and all yelling and raging and angry you step back and you go I'm being weak I'm falling below this kind of Ideal that I think I should follow in my life when it comes to your career and to navigating the very difficult environment that we're all dealing with you know a lot of young men think that the sign of success or approving themselves is by making a lot of money early on and being able to show that but to me that isn't what the game is all about the game is how to last so when I look at Sports and I look at athletes that I really admire and I think these are fantastic I think of Michael Jordan I think of Tom Brady I think of LeBron James I think of God bless his soul Kobe Bryant people who lasted they lasted for many years right they weren't just one-hit wonders and so true success and true power in life can go on for 10 20 30 years you have a plan you have a long-term career that you're aiming for and your goal is not to like make a bunch of money and show off it's to become a master in what you're doing to understand your field to be extremely creative and Powerful in that and then things will come to you so to be truly powerful you don't have to go out there and grab things you don't have to go prove yourself all of it will come to you people will come to you women will come to you job offers will come to you money will come to you if you have this kind of inner strength this kind of inner power that I think is the ideal for young men today in the world it's very confusing right now because everything is so fluid and we're all supposed to think that there's no such thing as masculinity anymore that it's toxic but real masculinity that real kind of strength that I'm talking about is not toxic at all it is not out there to hurt people it's not out there to dominate to be aggressive to push people around it's all about an inner strength an inner confidence that you radiate outward and that's a beautiful beautiful thing and I advocate making that your ideal and making that the kind of the Raider that guides you through these very difficult times

Channel: Robert Greene

Views: 1,440,263

Keywords: robert greene, robert greene books, men, women, young men, young, men's health, manhood, lessons, advice to young men, advice, wisdom, knowledge, jordan peterson, jocko willink, david goggins, andrew tate, patrick bet david, learn, learning, be a man

Id: 16QlwqB7crc

Length: 8min 54sec (534 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 14 2023