The Man Show Episode 6: How to Get More Out of Yourself By Expecting More From Yourself

The book referenced at the end of the Man Show that you can get for $2.95 is the Lost Art of Discipline Audiobook.

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“If unwilling to rise in the morning, say to thyself, ‘I awake to do the work of a man.’” –Marcus Aurelius

There’s a fine line between ambition and appreciation. To improve we have to let our reach exceed our grasp, and yet to live and to have energy and to love this experience, we need to identify things in our lives to appreciate. Both are beneficial.

In this episode of the Man Show I go over a few things that you have to be weary of, and that I’ve grown to understand over the past while.

1. You need models, but it’s as much about how they do it than it is about what they’ve done.

That is… Finding someone that has, in some way, accomplished something that you’d like to accomplish, or accomplished something on the scope that you’d like to accomplish something else, is powerful. We need models, they’re so very useful in that they show us both what to do and what not to do.

They’ve done it, why not learn from their errors so we can avoid making them in our own lives, the same with their successes.

What I’ve learned a lot as of late is that it’s not just about what they’ve accomplished, but how they did it, the morals, values, and virtues they’ve lived by. There are a lot of people who’ve done things I want to do, even if their specific success isn’t in the same niche or market, the scope that they’ve done it in, is. However, they haven’t achieved what they’ve achieved in the way I want to achieve it.

Simple. They’ve just accomplished things in a fake, sleazy way. And yes, I’m judging, and so should you.

You may see the thing they’ve accomplished, respect their achievement – which should be done – but then you model how they did it and after a couple years of work you realize that you’ve sold out, you’ve compromised who you are to get what you want, and it will never sit right. So when you’re setting out to accomplish something, be aware of who you model what you’re doing after.

You can learn from nearly everyone, but ideally find people who share the same values as you do. Be true to who you are and work your ass off.

In the podcast I mention a few names I respect (of course, there are many, many more that could have been added to this list):

• Ryan Michler (here’s his book)
• Brett McKay (here’s his web site)
• Sean Whalen (here’s his book)
• Bedros Keuilian (here’s his book)
• Mike Matthews (here’s one of his books)

Again, there are a lot of guys out there doing good work and doing it honorably. I could have added a heck of a lot more here, but that’s who came to mind immediately.

2. Define your ideal lady, and then define who she would ideally want to be with.

Maybe you’re already with your ideal lady. Either way, define who you’d ideally like to be with, if you’re single. If you’re not, use your woman. Now, take this either ideal or your lady, and determine the virtues, attributes, persona, values etc… of the guy she would IDEALLY want.

Is he tough, smart, funny, virtuous? How does he deal with issues? Why does she look up to him or why is she proud to be with him? Look at this ideal self from another perspective.

You can do the same with your kids, or future kids – who’s the guy they would ideally be raised by?

Get outside of yourself to define yourself.

3. Define your ideal day, and then define your perfect day with what you have now and with where you are now.

Define your ideal day, that is, the day that if you could live a single day for the rest of your life, this would be it. What do you do for work? Where are you living? What is your routine? Who are you with? Be specific.

Then, bring this ‘ideal’ to the present.

What’s your ideal day RIGHT NOW, with what you have right now, who you’re with, what you do, etc…

You can live your ideal day right now. And if you live this ideal day you’re going to have a damn good life. But it doesn’t have to be pushed to the future. It can exist in the present.

Man, we do not have to wait to become who we need to become. We can define it and decide to be him. Too often we push our potential to the future, we wait for permission from those around us, from our Maker, from society, from whatever you want to call it, and it never comes.

We make the decisions. We make the most out of our lives.

Get after it brother!