Image is everything. Okay, that’s not true, who you are and what you achieve is far more important than how you look. That said, you want to put the best version of yourself out there visually, because people do judge on appearance. If you look successful and manly you’re going to have that effect on others, which is what you want. (Read: 5 Steps to Be a Better Man)
You want to both look like the man and be the man.
Yet, style is trending toward the feminine. Men today are told to groom and pluck their face and chest and tighten their jeans and soften their skin.
In short, men are being pushed to look more feminine. Look at razor commercials or body spray commercials and you’ll see a slew of ‘somewhere in between’ looking humans, not men.
Men are also not being raised by men like they once were. What man knows how to fix his own truck, build his own fence, or fix the plumbing when it runs awry? Whether you want to look more manly in a suit or in jeans, in the boardroom or in the yard, I’ll show you 5 steps that’ll help you do that.
- Get in the gym!
You’re not trying to merely look ‘manly’, you want to both be the man and look like the man. You need to look like you command some damn respect and fear. You need to both be and look dangerous. Men, at their core, are just that, dangerous.
You’re technically a useless man if you don’t have the capacity to be a dangerous man. You’re useless to your community, your tribe, your family. If you can’t protect, you can’t do the thing that’s fundamental to masculinity.
And by gym, I don’t mean doing curls in the mirror with a tanned and hairless body. That ain’t how men workout. I mean join a boxing gym and learn how to fight. Join a crossfit gym and get your ass kicked. Get real world strong and athletic, not consumed by the aesthetic. (Read: Testosterone Supplements (what works and what doesn’t)
- Work with your hands.
Don’t wear lifting gloves, you’re not a woman. One of the biggest discrepancies between modern, soft men, and those from past generations, is their hands.
Men once worked with their hands, whether it was doing masculine work or working on their houses, you know, fixing things as men do.
Today we moisturize, we wear workout gloves, we use our hands to type and text not to hammer and shovel and bail. Popeye was created as a masculine figure, as was his arch enemy, both had massive forearms.
When you train your hands and your grip strength, you develop your forearms, and big forearms are very masculine. Call it ‘man cleavage’, because that’s the effect it has on women.
If you want to develop man strength/grip strength, try this program, it’s called Man Strength, and you get get it here..
- Trim but don’t go too far.
Masculinity is wild, or it has that capacity. You have to actually have the goods. Today the most popular videos and articles are those that focus on the things, the details, but not the foundation. You actually have to have what it takes. You have to be dangerous.
While masculinity is wild, if you want to look more manly today it’s also about success. You can’t look like a homeless fella. Get your hair cut every two weeks. Have a beard, I do, but keep it relatively trimmed.
Just don’t do all the eyebrows, manicures, pedicures, and the feminine things that men do these days. Look successful, not metrosexual.
Some easy archetypes would be Theodore Roosevelt, with his well-kept mustache, Tom Selleck, Sean Connery with his sometimes beard,
- Dress simpler.
Don’t be a fancy pants. Don’t be a peacock. Be a man. Dress like a man. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to dress down, you just don’t need all of the bracelets and fancy accessories that have become the norm these days.
Simpler is better if you’re trying to look masculine. If you want to look like something in between a real man and a fairy, then adorn yourself with every kind of accessory you can.
A man should wear a watch, always a watch, a gold chain if he wants, a good belt, but no bracelets, no rings other than the wedding one. Forget about the fancy sox. Forget about the wallet chain or whatever they’re called. And don’t jazz up your belt, simple leather.
- Loosen them jeans.
No man should ever wear anything resembling a skinny jean. Get real jeans. If you’re jacked they’ll inevitably be a little tight around the quads, but they’ll be broken in. This goes for all pants, don’t wear skinny pants. Women, by God, keep wearing them, but it’s feminine to wear skinny jeans.
It’s better to wear whatever the hell your old man wears than to adopt that silly style.
- Increase Your Testosterone Levels!
When we look at masculine traits, Psychology Today has an interesting point in an article I came across:
“The majority masculine traits are directly or indirectly related to the amount of testosterone available in a person’s body. On average, men’s testosterone levels are ten to forty-five times higher than women’s.” (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/my-brothers-keeper/201410/the-stigma-masculinity)
Testosterone is what makes men, men, and low testosterone will send your masculine traits plummeting.
The big problem is that testosterone is on the decline with men, so we have to take this not only more seriously, but into our own hands as well.
The higher your testosterone levels, the more masculine you will be and appear.
Every man needs help in this area.
Start with the Man Diet book, get your free copy here
Get your bottles of Man Greens here
- Be more competitive.
Today we’re told that being competitive is a bad thing, which makes absolutely no sense, but that’s what we’re told. We’re told that it’s destructive, along with other male traits like aggression, dominance, and stoicism.
The truth is that there’s something very inate in men that makes us want to be better than the next guy. That’s not something to be ashamed of or to hide from, it simply is. Thus, being a part of your nature, you should fuel that fire because being competitive will be an asset in life.
It will lead to more success, more meaning, happiness, and achievement.
Foster that competitive nature within yourself. Don’t run from it. (Read: How to Develop an Iron Will)
- Be more stoic.
Stoicism is a choice, but the American Psychological Association listed it among the things that makes masculinity ‘toxic’.
Stoicism is good, 100% good, and those that practice it become powerful, not victims to events or a bad state of mind, but able to understand that it’s not the thing that matters, but how we choose to react to it that matters most of all.
There can’t be anything bad about that, and it’s something you, too, should aim to become, a stoic.
You can’t see yourself as a victim as a stoic. You won’t feel sorry for yourself, you won’t allow yourself to feel down, you will only do what you have to do and what you must do to win in life.
- Be rough around the edges.
Today we teach manners before manhood. That’s an ass-backward approach to teaching boys how to be men.
Be a man before you aim to be a gentleman. Don’t fret over style, accessories, or aesthetics if you haven’t the barbarian virtues won.
Theodore Roosevelt put it best when talking about his nation on the whole, but it applies to the individual as well:
“Over-sentimentality, over-softness, in fact washiness and mushiness are the great dangers of this age and of this people. Unless we keep the barbarian virtues, gaining the civilized ones will be of little avail.”
If a man isn’t dangerous enough to easily defeat bad men who are dangerous, then the ease, the softness, the emotion of human relationships, the civility we enjoy in our society, is lost.
It’s not enough for a man to know how to dial 9-1-1 and to wait for a cop to come to his rescue. By all means dial the number, but in the 15-minutes it takes for them to get there you’d better be able to successfully take matters into your own hands.
Be good at being a man before you even think about being a gentleman.
If you take that to heart, if you get in touch with who you are as a man, remove any feminine aspects from your personality, forge the barbarian virtues that are masculinity, and then polish it up with good, simple style.
You have to be a man before you can even think about being a gentleman. We’re lacking that
How to Look More Manly
The easiest way to look more manly is to be more manly. What’s being more manly? For that, you have to go back to its base, to be better at being a man not just merely good. Men are utilitarian.
We need to be able to protect our family, our women, our tribe, so get good at protecting, be a good fighter, warrior, learn to use guns and so forth. Learn how to fix things around your house. Become more successful, be the provider, the protector, not the fella wasting his money on clothes he can’t afford, looking silly in the process.
Adjust who you look to for style tips.
Look to Frank Sinatra, John Wayne, and Teddy, not the latest celebrity with estrogen-filled veins.
