What has happened to the concept of masculinity? What has happened to authentic manhood? Do men have a passion for life any more? What are the winds of change for men?
It is up to each man, individually, to find his own answers. There are, however, some simple steps you can take to get there. The truth is that you should live a full and thrilling life because you know what your passion for life is. You can be successful and powerful by owning your authentic manhood.
In 1960 in Cape Town, South Africa, the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, gave his famous ‘Winds of Change’ speech. In it Macmillan acknowledged that black people in Africa were, quite rightly, claiming the right to rule themselves, and suggested that it was a responsibility of the British government to promote the creation of societies in which the rights of all individuals were upheld. He said,
“The wind of change is blowing through this continent, and whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact, and our national policies must take account of it.”
I would suggest that in this decade the ‘Wind of Change’ is blowing through the men’s movement and through men, as a whole. Men are finding their strength and their voice not as a dominant force but as a compassionate, supportive force. Men can now stand up in their power in the knowledge that they can be open, honest and authentic in their actions.You only have to look at sites such ‘The Good Men Project’ and ‘The Art of Manliness’ to see the extent to which attitudes are turning.
♦◊♦
‘Male eXperience’ has developed as a site in this time; it is now time for it to develop as a movement. ‘Male eXperience’ has drawn together men from around the world, it is now time for those men to draw further together into a movement. Men work best by joining forces, it is time for men to join forces under the banner of ‘Male eXperience’.
It is appropriate for me to lay out what can bring men together and what could hold us together. I would like to propose the ‘Male eXperience Manifesto’, our shout out to the world. These are the winds of change blowing through men.
♦◊♦
The Winds Of Change For Men – 20 Steps to Authentic Manhood
1. Live In Your Core
Discover your core masculinity. Feel your male energy, that drive that is deep down inside you. When you live there with honesty and courage you will truly be the man that others will look up to.
2. Understand Your Influences
Be conscious of your conditioning. You are not what you were when you were born, you need to understand how you have changed and been changed. Once you know what brought you to where you are you are able to move forward.
3. Have Your Own Standards
Everyone has different definitions of success and masculinity. Do not compare yourself to others. You’ll either feel over confident or very disappointed. You are your own set of standards.
4. Know Yourself As A Man
The better you know yourself the more likely you are to do what matters. Study your strengths, know your weaknesses, identify your values, define your success, learn the things that excite and those that terrify you.
5. Know How You See The World
Freedom doesn’t come from financial achievement or lifestyle rewards. Freedom is the ability to choose the way you interpret what happens to you. If you see yourself as a man to start with, you will act like a man and the world will be a better place as a result.
6. Be Present
Give your full attention to what you are doing and what is happening around you. You are connected to others by the extent to which you are present with them. Let go of what you want in this moment and focus on the other person.
7. Believe In Yourself
If you don’t have a deep emotional reason for feeling how you do about yourself, you will probably never truly believe in yourself. If you do not truly believe you will not put your heart and should into your life. Believe in yourself and others will believe in you, then you can go out and change the world.
8. Be Grounded
Ground yourself in who you are and what you stand for. If you are grounded you are not swayed by fashion or chaos. When you are able to stand firm you give certainty to those around you and enable them to dive deeper knowing you will still be there afterwards.
9. Seek New Goals
Nothing adds more clarity to most of life’s confusions than seeing new things. Get out and explore foreign worlds. Spending too much time in one environment makes you feel like that’s the only way. I assure you it’s not. Notice how different cultures do things differently.
10. Be Authentic
The world exists on personal connections. Know who you are, and are not, and be open with those around you. Make genuine connections. This comes from the ability to be vulnerable and the power that gives. When you open yourself to others in truth and honesty you will create change in the world.
11. Pick Your Friends Wisely
The people around you create who you are. If they inspire you, you’ll be inspired. If they depress you, you’ll be depressed. Those around you absolutely must dream as big or bigger and have as much passion or more than you do.
12. Get A Mentor
However grounded and authentic you are you do not know all the answers. Sometimes you cannot see what you are doing and how you are showing. If you have a mentor you can use their eyes to see you as you truly are. Then you can show up in the world in a much more powerful way.
13. The Process Not The Outcome
Stop worrying about getting there. You never will anyway. All the fun is along the trail next to you. It’s impossible to enjoy it if you’re dazed by the blurry horizon that never actually gets any closer.
14. Be Passionate
Throw yourself fully into anything you do or are involved in. It is your passion for life that determines what you get out of it. The Universe recognises when you are absorbed in what you do and when you mean what you say. It responds to you with ideas and opportunities that will take you far beyond your original goal. This is the reward for your passion.
15. Accept Change
Constantly experiment with new people and new experiences. Constantly learn new ideas and new ways of living. Consider your life a series of experiments. Live outside your comfort zone and be vulnerable.
16. Accept Uncertainty
When you step into uncertainty with confidence that you can face whatever occurs, when you become comfortable with uncertainty, that shows internal strength. The knowledge that you can face whatever life brings you is a powerful state of certainty to be in.
17. Be A Servant Leader.
None of the above matters if you don’t get out and actually do something with it. It’s not about achieving success or even completing a project. The magic doesn’t happen in the learning. It happens in the action you take as a result.
18. Be Intimate
This goes further than merely being present with someone. You step into a special relationship with someone when you practice intimacy. This can be the case in a sexual or a platonic relationship. Intimacy is when you truly connect with another person by giving all of your emotional and spiritual energy to them, and receiving all the emotional and spiritual energy they give to you.
19. Know Your Own Power
You are powerful in many ways. It is easy, though, to shy away from your power in fear of what it can do to others. When you fully understand your power, and its effect on others, you can live there in the knowledge that it can only help others. It becomes power laced with compassion, with the understanding of what others need.
20. Live Your Full Potential
The lesson from all of these steps is that you need to live your full potential to get everything that you can out of life. You get back what you give. Receive and it shall be given to you. You have life so that you can live it, go ahead and make full use of it, live your full potential.
♦◊♦
Work through these 20 steps and develop your passion for life. Find your authentic manhood and you be amazed at what you can achieve in life, in business and in your relationship. Catch hold of the winds of change and transform yourself as a man.
Let me know in the comments, below, what you particularly need to change, what are your winds of change.
Other Posts in the series 'Authentic Manhood'
- Authentic Manhood - Have Your Own Standards
- Authentic Manhood - Know Yourself As A Man
- Authentic Manhood - Live In Your Core
- Authentic Manhood - Understand Your Influences
[...] ‘The 20 Steps To Authentic Manhood’ I laid out what can bring men together in the ‘Male eXperience Manifesto‘. In the first [...]
Freedom doesn’t come from financial achievement or lifestyle rewards. Freedom is the ability to choose the way you interpret what happens to you. If you see yourself as a man to start with, you will act like a man and the world will be a better place as a result. — so profound!!
Unfortunately, more men today think that government can fix their lack of manliness. So they sacrifice their freedom for their free existence.
I wish every man reads this and understand that it is not how difficult your circumstances are; rather it is how you react to your adverse circumstances that matter most in your life.
Thank you, Shilpan, I appreciate your support. It is always about how you perceive the world around you. Government is only a reflection of the people it represents, no matter how bad it is.
“So the sacrifice their freedom for their free existence.” That is so true but so many men find it hard to understand. I wish that more could read what I write not through a sense of pride or arrogance but through a desire to help them create change.
[...] have been in a creative mood. I have been writing a major post for ‘Male eXperience’ on ‘The Winds of Change for Men’ and I have been brainstorming my creative/business future and Urmila’s creative/business [...]