The Unstoppable Underdog Male

You may have tuned in to last week's talk about "being a surfer, not an accountant." It was actually a two-part article, and this is the real juice: If you like "underdogs," cheer for underdogs, or are, yourself an "underdog" in some area of life as a man, then you are in for some seriously powerful concepts, strategies and skills this week.

Much of what we do at Men's Psychology pertains to the notion that men have unique, specific strengths, resources, and instincts, that are different from women.  This, of course, does not make us "unequal" as genders. It's just that there's no point comparing the two genders. We are different. One of the unique differences between men and women occurs when a man or a woman is alone on their own, trying to figure out a new direction in life. In a way, a woman is never alone. She lives in a world of sisters. Even strangers are her sisters. It's a wonderful thing that women are so supportive of each other and tied to each other.

Lately I have thought about the concept of being an underdog. I've been an underdog in various times of my life. Even if you have never been an underdog, you most certainly know a guy who is. I hope you cheer him on.

Here's what got me thinking about the underdog:

• I saw the remarkable new Woody Allen film, "Midnight in Paris", and it reminded me of numerous former relationships of mine. Owen Wilson plays an underdog who is put upon by his fiance and her parents. He's a Hollywood screenwriter trying to strike out and write a novel for the first time.
• All the "bad news about men" coming in from the research world in the past year - men graduating college far less than women, for the first time ever, men making up only 20% of consumer spending (which is the real power in any economy), and for the first time ever, some studies reversing the old statistic that marriage lengthens the lifespan of males. It seems that it's now healthier for a male to remain single.
• All the endless procession of gladiator sport in the form of male shame - from Tiger Woods, to Schwarzenegger, to Anthony Weiner - and the commentary by a female Newsweek writer noting that "the notion of a fidelitous male in a committed marriage is a very recent idea in human history (ibid, Victorian England)...
• ...then wondering how males who contribute massively to society, and then that scandal-type stuff happening, what happens to them next, inside their psychology, how alone are they, and what is their worth to society and themselves AFTER such news stories...
• The previews of the new film, Captain America, about a skinny, wussy kid joining the military, and transforming into a superhero, look exceptionally, way cool.
• Suddenly remembering 8th grade, when Shaun MacDonald pinned me at wrestling in gym class, in under seven seconds, and how the embarrassment lasted for many years more.
• Speaking of superheroes, We've been focused for two months on what the root instincts (and skills) of masculinity are on our weekly TELESEMINARS, whose course material has been the Mature Masculine Power Program, and the accompanying program, Superhero Masculinity.
• A new desire to dive deeper into the Men's Psychology models and discover new concepts...

And I was not disappointed. You can see in this flowing mishmash of ideas the kind of process that goes on when I'm devising new lessons for men each week. It certainly isn't a "cookie cutter" mass-production process. It's real, and it's deep stuff. In fact, of late I'm so fired up about the concept of bullying, how hidden and destructive it is to male development, and nearly not talked about - still - for typical men, that I want to bring it to the fore.

If you were to browse through the programs of men's psychology at the dashboard above, you'd see a pattern - a combination of the three main areas of the mind - our instincts, emotions, and intellect - with the three main areas of masculine life - women, work, and "being a man." Since we've gone for two whole months on the male instinct part of behavior on the teleseminars, I've become interested in what the "other areas of the mind" can do for us as men to augment, refine, and amplify those instincts. I am really hungry for "discovery" - and something new in my own material...

The first place I then look to is the experience of the male, bullied underdog - which I certainly was long ago...

Confidence = Trust in the Present

When I run groups for people at my "other job" professionally, I sometimes want to deliver on what my clients are most motivated to learn. It was a week ago that I asked what's on peoples' minds, and I got a two-part, difficult-to-assemble response. One man wanted to look at "what trust is," and a woman asked about "how can I make a plan to get a job if I have been out of work for five years."  I wanted to satisfy the whole group, and so it was a challenge, but the best possible kind of challenge.  These ideas do not seem to be associated at all, at first, but in the end you'll see that they most certainly offer lessons for the underdogs of life.

When asked about "trust," I most often turn to the general personal growth material we provide, called MindOS Mastery. In there, we look at actual "maps" related to anxiety and confidence - literal pathways to take your fears and manufacture them directly into that type of emotion, that type of self-esteem called, "confidence."

One of the ways of doing that is to consider that the very capacity for trust comes from one's confidence.  For example, have you ever known a small man who is trained at some high-level martial arts? I have. Some of the guys I'm thinking of could devastate a six-foot-eight, three hundred pound, untrained opponent in a fight. So when you see these little guys walking around, it makes sense why they seem so at ease being assertive with other people, even those much larger than themselves.

Their "capacity to trust" - even in the dangerous parts of town - exactly parallels the level of confidence they carry around emotionally. And one source of that confidence rests in their level of competence at self-defense. The end result is true to the definition of confidence itself - the emotion associated with the ability to withstand risk, change or potential (and real) loss.

So back in my group I drew a line between Trust and Confidence.  They are then synonyms, and certainly feed into each other as a man.

Confidence = Security from the Past

Taking off from confidence, and having shown my group the amazing "Anxiety Map" from MindOS - the exact emotional anatomy of confidence and how to "grow it" - someone stopped me to ask, "What does an arrow from confidence go to? And is it about things that happen in the past or the future?"

A reasonable question. Let's entertain it. It stands to reason that when we say that a man "trusts" someone or something - like his wife, or his girlfriend, or his best buddy, or his job status - he is most often referring to what is happening right now. His wife is out on the town with her girlfriends, and he says, "I trust her." His best friend has just borrowed a great deal of money, and he says, "I trust him, implicitly."

While we talk about confidence as if it is a universal in people - past, present and future, we often say, "That guy is a confident guy," meaning that he has had the trait awhile, and we currently trust that he is going to be reliably confident into the future, perhaps as a business partner, or teammate in a sport, or wingman in our dating lives. The confidence is a characteristic in him, about him, carried with him from the past, and into the future.

What about the past though? Our martial artist in the example above is both confident and trusting, but that had to come from somewhere. And when out of the back of the room, a gentleman said, "He has built a sense of security," it made sense. Another synonym for trust and confidence, but one based in past experience, work, and effort at strength, self-protection, savvy know-how, and discipline at the art of fighting. The pre-Captain America skinny boy does not have trust, confidence, or security because he hasn't been battle-tested by the approaching Wold War II. But the very mortal and flawed Ernest Hemingway depicted in Midnight in Paris had an unstoppable sense of security even in the face of the unknown, all because of the experience of being a veteran of World War I.

So the universal - confidence - equals trust, and also equals security. Very handy traits in the life of a man, and the desired skills of an underdog.

Security = Faith in the Future

My clients at this particular place often like to talk about their religious faith, and sometimes find it surprising - and strengthening - to "just add science." I believe it was Einstein who said, "Science without religion is lame, and religion without science is blind." And so it wasn't surprising to me that someone said, "Well, I feel security in God..."

Which is awesome, helpful and strengthening. I couldn't resist getting even more into the subject than that though. I asked, "Is there a word for what ALSO refers to a sense of security from other places too, including God?"

And yes there was - it's the word, "faith."

People can have faith in God, certainly, but also faith in our friends, our family, and ultimately OURSELVES.  In fact, wasn't it Benjamin Franklin who said, "God helps those who help themselves."

They recalled this maxim, and it led to a pretty lengthy discussion of all the sources from which people find the emotion of faith. There were so many ways that it caused us all to kind of sit there in amazement. At which a very old woman said, "It sounds to me that what is in common between all these things is faith that the future will be a good thing."

Which of course for them, includes faith in God, that in the future one will go to a place called Heaven.

The old woman said, "I would also say that it all depends what you believe underneath all that. I believe in Heaven."

So it was from there that this simple thing called confidence remained just as simple, but expanded into all of its varieties of power.

Trust = Confidence = Security = Faith = Believing, and these may all be the only features of our psychology that are both desired goals, and at the same time, the cure for their own lack.

They are both the sorest needs, and the most reliable tools of the underdog seeking to be a winner.

The Foolproof Methods of Growing Confidence and Practical Uses of It

We've forgotten about our lady who wanted to know how to get a job after not being in the workforce for over five years. There was one thing that was glaringly obvious about her spirit, and its connection to our original subject of trust. After discovering that trust, confidence, security, faith and belief are essentially the same thing emotionally - simply applied to different time-frames in our lives - we knew these were good things to possess, but didn't discuss any practical, street-level ways of building them from scratch.

It was pretty clear that if you can muster faith in something about the future, you can feel more secure, and if you can feel more secure about what you have built in your past, you can feel more confident. If you can find sources of confidence in the story of your life, you can certainly feel more trusting that what you are dealing with right now will go quite well.

Now there are several programs in which we use the Anxiety Map which goes into the precise way to generally build confidence in your life - you need to face the fears you have, and turn the anxiety into courageous actions. Courage is the decision to do what is uncomfortable because it is the right thing to do to solve a problem.  You are alone when you do this, and nobody will help prior to your moment of courage, and this is one feature of what in ages past, used to be called "initiation" for males into adulthood. The Anxiety Map is most thoroughly covered in the MindOS Mastery Program. It is drilled down deep into within the Attack Anxiety Program. And it is applied to the concept of building masculine skill and identity through initiation in the Mature Masculine Power Program.

It's all about courage - doing what is right in the face of discomfort.

But on this occasion I saw a woman with no work experience in five years dare to exhibit the courage to set out into the world again after recovering from a serious illness.

I wanted to hear from HER about courage as a cure for our discontent, in all the ways that it can play out in her particular case.

I noticed the very first way, and you can use this skill too as a starting point.

The Five Methods of Courage

"We're talking about how trust can possibly connect to wanting a job," I said. "That's a tough one at first, but the obvious thing is that you dared to ask the question."

It was true. There must have been something about this woman that convinced her that it was a sensible question to ask. After being homeless and ill, some spirit arose that said, "Time to get back to work." She was certain that it was possible, or she wouldn't have even bothered to look into what jobs she might qualify for, how to get a place of her own, her resume together, and jobs that would suit her.

She had the courage to ask questions. She believed in herself enough.

I said, "So what is it about you that makes you want to get a job, and what makes you think you're ready?"

She said, "Well for one, I've taken quite a few courses on computer programs. I can do a lot of things now. Secretarial skills, word processing, spreadsheets, working with numbers, words... and I'm very good with people. I've had a lot of experience with difficult people too."

She was talking about what psychiatrists call competence. Know-how.

Education. Experience. Know-how. She had the courage to learn, which is the same as the courage to risk not understanding something, to be too slow a learner, or not able to turn it into action. She had faith in her knowledge, both the book-learning, and the street-smarts.

"That makes sense," I said. "What else is there about you that makes you dare to ask the question?"

"Well, it's a God thing," she said.  Something that normally makes my eyes glaze over, because it is often said without any thought or authenticity, as if read from a script rather than coming from one's own, original depth. "I've been thinking about it a lot, wondering if I'm ready, and bouncing the idea off of Him, I've realized that it's time. I just know, and God has seen me through many other things - my illness, my divorce, the times in the street..."

She had used a mature faith that had given her a personal security - a track record of surviving - centered on her faith in a higher power.

Some people blankly applauded this, but she was not amused by it. Her's was a very personal and thoughtful faith in her higher power, not an anthem to sing, or a quotable quote to repeat.

The common saying, "Let go and let God" came up of course. If God were an ideal, caring parent, I suppose one could sit back and do nothing - letting the good fortune just roll in. It would be like playing the lotto and winning every time, without the very real statistic that within three years, most lotto winners have already lost or spent their fortunes.

Benjamin Franklin's "God helps those who help themselves" came up, and a host of people who were "self-made" - who struggled to get to where they are, and suffered quite a bit along the way, resisting their "bad luck," or humble origins, or daunting challenges.

It seemed that the real truth about faith - in God, in friends, family, country or even ourselves - was somewhere half way between "what's meant to be is meant to be" and a "never say die" rebelliousness against the cold, cruel world out there - that a person like our lady, myself, and perhaps you have had to live in.

A silence fell after all this, and I looked at the woman to ask, "Is there anything else? One more thing about you that gives you this confidence to ask about getting a job again? Trusting yourself to get back out there?"

"Yes," she said. It's that i used to work, and I had a small savings, and I liked that. It's gone now, but I'd like to have that again.

It was that she had dreams. Those things that we are so quick to call unrealistic, and not very practical. But that's what they were for her, and they spurred her to want to do something that some would say she can't. She dreamt of having a retirement savings again, even though she was near the age of retirement.

And so our methods of building confidence, trust, security, faith and belief had grown to four things:

1. The courage to ask questions of yourself and others.

2. The courage that draws from your spiritual life, and if you see fit, your Higher Power.

3. The courage to learn, and to try to understand things that you don't... yet.

4. The courage to dream of what you want for yourself.

That last one is the most unexpected, and for many of us as men, little talked about. We are so often centered on a "nose to the grindstone" approach - a hard work ethic that men have approached me with about everything from trying to figure out what the right career is for them, to the notion of how to attract a woman. It's just so built into us as men to come face to face with a challenge, and to try to break a hole right through it.

Which may work for a time in establishing a career, but rarely works in finding the love of a woman.  So it makes sense that women provided the answers here - older women.

It seems to me that the best and most suprising "power of the underdog" here is to be a dreamer, but not to end there. To let your dreams inspire you to do the other things - to ask, to learn, to pull faith, and finally to try - to then do the actions necessary after learning a new skill, having a new goal. It all began with the dreams. They are the ultimate way to find confidence, trust, security and faith from out of thin air...

From the courage to ask, to listen to the spiritual, to learn and to dream, a person could draw security, or faith, or confidence, or trust - all of which could be turned into one another - whatever it is that you sense you lack in your life.

And it was at that moment that the old woman who'd fallen silent through much of this spoke up yet again.

"There's one other thing," she said. "It's what they all have in common again."

"What is that?"

"It's people.  You have to ask questions to people, learn from people, have faith with people and worship with them, or you really don't know what to believe. And we all dream, don't we?"

Yet another trait of masculinity - the rugged independence gene that's in us - again, needing the reflections of a feminine viewpoint to bring out its power.

5. People

As individualistic as we are as men, we need other people to discover our confidence, even through our capacity to dream.

What good would even those be if we didn't have someone to share them with?

You'll find this practical kind of thinking throughout our courses at Men's Psychology. I hope you enjoy them.