37. What It Means to Be Civilized

“Due to a misguided idea of what it means to be civilized, the modern male has convinced himself that the spectator is morally superior to the competitor.” —Fred Fawls

Bryce is the type of high-school basketball player who is always called “a team player” and “a hard worker.” He shows up early for every practice. A senior on the varsity team, he always helps his sophomore and junior teammates with their game. He is a solid player, with a reasonably high scoring record, though not as high as some of his teammates. He holds the team record for assists, though, and is considered a “strategic player.” When two of his teammates are recruited by prestigious university teams, he feels sad but not surprised that he has been overlooked; he has never expected to be noticed for his playing.

Before he met his wife, Kevin’s passion was racing motorcycles. His wife feels the sport is too dangerous, reminding him of several local men who have been injured or killed pursuing the sport. There’s a big racing event coming up, which will covered by a cable sports station, and several of Kevin’s friends are competing. As the day of the event approaches, Kevin gets a sickly feeling in his stomach every time he thinks about his friends who are racing. He wishes that he could participate; however, he is so out of practice that he would be unable to race, even if his wife would allow him to.

Joe has worked in human resources at a large bank for seven years and has not had a promotion in five. He does everything that he is supposed to: his work is thorough, he completes his assignments in a timely fashion, he has instigated procedural changes that have maximized efficiency and saved his company thousands of dollars. Yet every time he applies for a higher position, it goes to one of his colleagues. He has become so frustrated that he has considered changing jobs, but he is very close with his immediate supervisor and does not want to abandon him.

In my ten years as a life coach, I have seen countless cases such as these. All of these men are talented and capable, yet their lack of aggression prevents them from achieving the accomplishments they dream of. They don’t believe that they deserve success. They have been gambling against themselves, thinking that everyone else’s needs, goals, and desires are as important as their own.

Maybe you agree with them; you believe that you are no more entitled to success than anyone else. Perhaps this is true. But your job is not to advocate for everyone else. Your job—your birthright as a living being—is to advocate for yourself.

Imagine the president of a country who says, “I want to win the war, but of course, the other country also wants to win, so why should my needs come first?” Imagine the quarterback who says, “My team wants to get to the Superbowl, but the other team wants it more, so I think they should go.” Imagine the antelope who thinks, “This lion is going to eat one of us, so it might as well be me.”

What would we say to this president, this quarterback, this antelope? We would say that they are not doing their jobs! They have neglected to advocate for themselves, and this neglect will lead to their unnecessary downfall.

But their way of thinking is extremely common for many modern men. We are raised to be considerate, to cooperate, to think of other people’s needs as equivalent to our own. And later, we are taught that morality is relative, that good and evil do not exist, that our enemies are simply people with needs and desires, just like us, that all conflicts can be solved through diplomacy.

That all might be true, but it’s not your problem. Your problem—your mission as a living being, your duty, your reason for existing—is to promote your own interest. Once you can agree to this truism, that your purpose for existing is to honor your own self-interest above all other interests and considerations, then I can give you strategies to help you achieve that purpose. But until you are willing to break from the pluralistic ideology of cooperation that you have been indoctrinated into since childhood, you will never be able to activate your full potential as a Fully Actualized Man.

To become Fully Actualized, you must fulfill your role in the Evolutionary Contract. This contract mandates that, for survival of the fittest to work, we must all fight to survive. “But I’m not the fittest,” you might respond. “I am doing my species a favor by removing myself from the gene pool.” You are wrong; that’s not how evolution works. It is not for you to decide whether you are the fittest. Only time and the progression of nature can decide that. What if the first mammal with opposable thumbs had decided that he was a freak, and therefore not fit to pass on his genes? Mankind would have never come into existence, because one individual decided not to fight for his own survival. Whatever you have to offer, you must offer it with pride, unapologetically, knowing that it may be your unique traits that save our species or carry it further into greatness.

Want to Win
As the opening of this chapter suggests, the first step of becoming Fully Actualized is to activate your desire to outperform others. This sounds simple, yet the desire to win has been bred out of many modern men. Instead, we are trained to compromise, to hold back, not to draw attention to our abilities.

When I met Bryce, he had just joined the basketball team at his local community college. He was still a solid player but was overshadowed by other players who were the stars of the team. He often made suggestions for plays they might try in upcoming games, but no one took his ideas seriously.

I asked Bryce what was the difference between himself and the star players on the team.

“Are they more skillful players than you?” I asked him.

“No,” he said, with certainty.

“So why do they get all the attention?” I asked. “What are they doing that you’re not?”

He thought about it for a moment. “They will do anything to win,” Bryce said. “They will play dirty, commit lots of fouls. They try to injure the top players on the other team. They will grab the ball from a weaker player on our own team to make sure we get the shot.”

“Why don’t you do those things?” I asked him.

“Because they’re mean,” said Bryce. “I’m not a mean person.”

“What’s the purpose of playing a game?” I asked.

“It’s for fun,” he said. “There is no purpose.”

“I don’t agree,” I said. “I think the purpose of playing is to win. The fun comes from the knowledge that there will be a winner and a loser, and from the desire to be the winner. Otherwise, games wouldn’t have winners and losers; but almost all of them do.”

I explained to Bryce that a game is not really a game unless you are doing everything possible to try to win. Without that kind of sincere competition, you dishonor the game, your teammates, your opponents, and, most importantly, yourself.

Bryce took my advice and began to focus more persistently on winning. He noticed that this change of perspective immediately affected his level of play. Before, his attention during a game had been on team dynamics; he would always look to see who was open and in position for a shot, making sure to pass to players who hadn’t had a chance to score yet or who weren’t getting much action. He would be careful not to foul the other team’s players. Now, he put all of those concerns aside and focused on scoring points. He did whatever it took to get himself into a position where he could score, even if it meant elbowing past one of his opponents. If he was not in the position to score, he would pass to the strongest teammate who was open.

Because of his increased contribution, Bryce’s team began to win more games and move up in their conference rankings. His coaches began to take interest in him, and the local newspaper profiled him as a “local athlete to watch.” When he was ready to transfer to a four-year school, he was accepted onto a prestigious team that one of his high school teammates was already playing for.

“Your game has really come up,” the classmate told him.

A lot of men are like Bryce—they consider themselves to be nice people, and they believe that they are doing the world a favor by not competing at their highest level. But it is not a favor to dumb down your abilities; it is an insult. What Bryce discovered is that people respect a competitor—no one more so than those who have to compete against him.

If you think that it is not in your nature to compete because you are a nice, cooperative person who does not want to dominate others, consider how you behave in traffic. When you are in a rush and somebody cuts in front of you, driving slowly, you do you sympathize and cooperate with his incompetence? Do you slow down as well so that the person doesn’t feel bad that they made a mistake? Do you say to yourself, “I won’t acknowledge his poor driving. He probably just isn’t a very experienced driver. I don’t want him to get discouraged and stop driving altogether!” No, you do not. You change lanes and speed past the person, possibly shooting him a dirty look as you do so. In a situation where you know you want to win—to get to your destination on time—your goal is your singular focus, and you have no tolerance for those who stand between you and your objectives.

When the stakes matter to you, you are willing to make winning your only priority. The issue is not that you can’t want to win—it’s that you choose not to want to win. You choose to give life your best capabilities when it really matters to you. Why shouldn’t all your pursuits matter that much to you, enough to make you want to work your hardest and do your best?

Stop Worrying about Others
The second step in becoming a Fully Actualized Man is to put your own needs above the needs of others. Yes, it is a nice thing to help other people, when they need our help, and when giving help does not undermine our own desires and objectives. But your own interests must always be your first priority. Otherwise you will not be fulfilling your part of the Evolutionary Contract.

My experience working with Kevin demonstrates this principle:

I asked Kevin what was stopping him from achieving his dream of racing motorcycles again. He told me that his wife did not want him to race. I asked him why this mattered; why should he have to do what she wanted? What about what he wanted? He said that he didn’t want to make her upset. I asked him what would happen if she got upset.

“She would leave me,” he said.

“How do you know that?” I asked him.

“She told me. She said, ‘I’m not going to hang around waiting for you to get yourself killed on that motorcycle.”

I asked him, “Why would you stay in a relationship with someone who uses emotional blackmail to keep you from doing things that are important to you?”

Kevin thought about this question for quite a while. He did not have an answer for me that day. When I saw him again, several months had passed. Kevin told me excitedly that he had begun to train for motorcycle races.

“What did your wife say about it?” I asked him.

“She left me,” he said.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.

“But you were right,” he told me. “It’s much better to be single and be able to do what I want.”

Kevin went on to tell me how much his life had improved since his wife had left. He was free to do whatever was necessary to pursue his passions.

“I don’t need to worry about making anybody happy,” he said. “I can stay out at the track all weekend, and I don’t need to come home for meals or anything. Sometimes I sleep at my friend’s place closer to the track and don’t go to my apartment for days on end.”

Kevin’s only regret was that he missed his two young children, now that they weren’t living with him.

“They’ll appreciate your decision when they’re older,” I told him. “Kids want their parents to be happy.”

When you stop worrying about others, you may lose friends, or anger your family and loved ones. But if their “love” was contingent on you doing things that benefited them, was it really love at all? To become Fully Actualized, you must never lose sight of your own goals and objectives, even if they are challenging or upsetting to those around you.

Be Arrogant
You know that guy who gets under your skin every time you’re forced to interact with him? He thinks he’s better than everybody. He has many strengths, and he lords his abilities over those around him. He is unsympathetic towards other people’s individual difficulties and problems; he expects everyone else to rise to the level of his unreasonable standards.

You need to become that guy. You need to have confidence in your own abilities and not worry about seeming conceited. Why should you minimize your own talents and achievements just to make lesser people feel better about themselves? If you are the best in a particular area, if you are an expert, you should not hesitate to let those around you know it. Opportunities to use your expertise will not come to you unless people recognize that you are an expert.

Joe came to me bitter and frustrated about the poor treatment he received at his job.

“I do all the work around there,” he said. “But it’s like no one notices. I have been turned down for at least seven promotions, which went to people who were less experienced and less qualified.”

“Why don’t you quit?” I asked him. “You could get another job.”

“I know,” said Joe. In fact, Joe knew somebody at a rival company who had offered him a position.

“Why don’t you take it?” I asked.

“I don’t want to upset my supervisor,” Joe said. “It’s not his fault that I haven’t been promoted. Also, I think I would have the same problems at the rival company.”

“Do you like James Bond movies?” I asked Joe.

He looked surprised. “Yes, I do,” he said.

“Okay,” I told him. “Think about what James Bond would do in your position.”

“James Bond would never work in human resources,” Joe said.

I told Joe that this was a mental exercise, an imagination game. “Imagine that James Bond feels he is not being treated well by the Secret Intelligence Service. What would he do?”

“I guess he wouldn’t stand for it,” said Joe.

“So what actions would he take?” I asked.

“He would quit,” Joe said.

“Would he get a job at another intelligence service?” I asked.

“No,” said Joe. “He would work for himself, so he could never be screwed over by his bosses again.”

“I think you know what you need to do,” I told Joe.

Joe decided not to quit right away. Instead, he began doing research and making some connections. After a year, he was able to found his own transnational company which handled human resources remotely, from India. His company helped many banks save hundreds of thousands of dollars by moving their human resource departments to India. In a few years, both his old company and the rival company that had offered him a job outsourced their human resource departments to his company. Joe’s supervisor was laid off, along with the rest of Joe’s former department, but Joe was able to offer him a position at his company in India.

Joe had all the knowledge and skills to run his own company, yet he was unwilling to capitalize on these advantages. He allowed himself to be treated as less than his true worth, all because he didn’t want to hurt his supervisor’s feelings. Once he was willing to insist on the respect he deserved, he gained the power and prestige he had dreamed of.

When you meet a man who annoys you by being too self-confident, too full of himself, too obnoxiously self-promoting, ask yourself: why am I bothered by his confidence? Is it because I know that he is better than me or because I know that I am better than him? If the former is true, you have no reason to be annoyed at him; it is your own inferiority that should annoy you. And if the latter is true, it is your duty to prove your superiority so this man will better understand his place in the world.

Act the Part
Reading about these steps to becoming a Fully Actualized Man, you may feel overwhelmed. Perhaps you are thinking, “I would like to be like those men you describe—but that’s just not me.” That’s a common reaction. It is not easy to undo years of cultural conditioning. It is a grueling task to change everything about how you view the world and your place in it. But the rewards of this change are great: being truly engaged, truly alive, not a spectator but a competitor.

Studies have shown that pretending to be happy—the mere act of smiling, even—raises people’s actual feelings of happiness. The same is true for acting confident, dominant, or arrogant. You do not need to feel aggressive to be aggressive. Think of the most aggresive person you know, and use him as a model for your behaviors. You may have noticed that I often encourage men to find role models to help them imagine how a Fully Realized Man would act. Eventually, of course, you must learn to be your own man and not follow anyone’s example too closely. But we all learn our life philosophies from those we look up to; that’s why it is crucial to choose your role models wisely. In time, with practice, you will find it easy, even natural, to assert your innate aggressive nature without the need for outside inspiration.

In closing this chapter, I’ll tell you a secret: one of these men that I described in this chapter was me. Hell, all of these men were me, just as all of us are these men at certain points in our lives. But one of these men was really me. And I talked to myself, at that time, as a coach would talk to a player, or as a ranking officer would advise a soldier, or a father would offer guidance to his son. And I told myself: you can make your dreams come true.

What I discovered, once I was able to take my own advice, was that there was nothing in the world that I could not do. I did not need to sit on the sidelines, cheering appreciatively as other people did amazing, brave, risky, rewarding things that I secretly longed to do myself. I did not need to be a spectator. I could get in there. I could be a competitor. So can you. The world is full of opportunities. You just need the conviction to take them.

Chapter 38