so what does it mean to be a man I've been thinking about this video working on it for a while actually I was going to call it the 12 characteristics of being a man but um so I was doing research as you know I was getting ready for it ended up coming across some information that changed how I wanted to approach this video so I'm going to slow things down but um I realized it's incredibly important especially in today's day and age there are so many distractions so many people out there so many false gurus
you know saying this is how you become a man you have to get into this great shape you've got to make this amount of money you've got to sleep with this many women and none of that matters yeah you know it's fun it's enjoyable and I I think the majority of you guys out there the kind of life that you want to live if you're watching this channel you probably want to have somebody that you love in your life you want to have family you want to have a partner you want to maybe have kids
you want to accomplish something you want it you know all these things that they're pushing out there um they're nice skills that pay the bills and they they works great on Instagram but you know what what's going to go on your Tombstone that's something I was fortunate enough at an early point to have that concept introduced to me and pushed on me and uh so I want to share with you guys what I think constitutes being a man and let me be clear if it's not this is 100% my opinion I know some of you
guys are going to disagree I just want share with you what's worked for me and the way I've been able to make sense of this world and be able to sleep soundly at night with the person I am so if You' watched my channel for a while you probably know I like to think I'm a bit of a prepper I haven't gone all out with a bunker but I'm all about you know self-reliance about independence I love the idea of being outside the system of being independent of all the chaos all the craziness of being
able to think that you know I can break away and that the decisions I'm making are my own I mean hell I grew up in West Texas and watch that movie Lone Wolf McQuade again and again and again anyone else out there and uh it was just this belief that yeah all I need is myself maybe a weapon you know and I could live off the land in my truck I'll be fine and you know to a degree that's a good mentality the fact that you're prepared the fact that you have thought through things the
fact that you aren't always having to rely on other people to be able to survive be able to make things happen because there's a lot of people that are way over Reliant so if I'm going to be One Direction yeah I'd rather be a little bit more leaning towards the prepper towards the self-reliant person and so this next point being committed to other people almost sounds like an oxymoron when you have that first one there but that's why I said to a limited degree being self-reliant because I don't believe that we live in a vacuum
and one thing I've learned as I've aged uh have put more years on this Earth having kids having a great partner having awesome friends is that man committing to those relationships has made life so fulfilling and rewarding so like a lot of you guys my parents divorced when I was young I was about five my dad would try to come out he would drive from California to Texas it seemed like every summer just to see us for a couple weeks and I was 15 and he came picked me Lena up my brother Tom and he
drove us out to California he introduced us to his new wife she hated us I don't know me she go I was okay because I I don't bother anybody my brother Tom's just kind of weird at times my sister Lena you know she was just at that age Liz hated her and uh my dad had to make a decision you're G to stick with your wife you're going to stick with your kids cuz Liz said we got to go and he packed us up and he drove us all the way back back to Texas dropped
us off and I didn't see my dad again for probably I don't know 17 18 years I'll tell you my dad abandoning us like that um you know me I feel I was able to be okay with it it really I think bothered my younger brother Tom he didn't understand what was going on why dad you know didn't love him anymore didn't want to see him and my sister I think it really screwed her up she had issues for the rest of her life um and I don't think she ever really recovered from it my
older sister uh she still you know to this day um I did go eventually see my dad he divorced and so he wanted to try to build the relationship back but it's too late you know everyone's all busy with their lives and to this day he still can't commit to the little things like I'll be out there with my family and they're like hey Dad let's meet up so we went to a restaurant and he showed two hours late you know and I realized I talked to my sister Lisa cuz he would do this all
the time just couldn't commit he would something not even show and she said you know I just can't be around I can't expose my kids to somebody like this that can't even commit to showing up on time now understand when I'm saying men commit to relationships I'm not saying you got to stick with a bad relationship or a toxic relationship you can get amazing things out of a relationship I know marriage is off the table for a lot of you guys you've gone through a divorce or you just know it's not for you you've got
too much to lose but I will say you know I'm about to celebrate the 20th wedding anniversary with my wife and I look at that's one of the greatest things that's happened to me and she's given me the greatest things in my life five beautiful kids uh a family that you know we love each other we take care of each other we look out for each other and in a sense I've tried to go the opposite path I used my dad as an anti- example of what I wanted to you know I have the conversations
with my kids I really do I try to be there for everything that I can jents the reality is commitment is work commitment is a lot of effort commitment is a lot of time and there is no guarantee that everything that you're investing in this other person everything you're investing in this relationship that you're going to get really anything back which maybe sounds like a bad deal except if you look at it what does it do to you I and that's where I think a lot of guys miss one of the big things with commitment
you know when you commit to let's just say raising a child or anyone that's committed to owning an animal you love that person you put in this effort it's almost like a mirror and what you give them reflects right back to you and that commitment I think no matter how that relationship turns out it's a reflection on you and something you can look at your you can look at yourself in the mirror and you can say you know I gave it my all I did what I could maybe you know it ends in divorce maybe
your kids don't want to speak to you because of something that was out of your control uh a breakup and someone was whispering poison into their ear but you know what if you put in you could look if you could look yourself the miror and said I did what I could I reached out I you know went through the court I got you know letters to her to let her know that I care about her I love her I'm here to support her I want to do what I can being able to commit being able
to make a promise being able to follow up and be consistent with that promise I think that that's one of the key characteristics of being a man so initially I didn't even have this as a characteristic of what it means to be a man but um about a week ago I came across an article that just broke my heart and uh I couldn't get it out of my mind and I was even like found myself crying multiple times just thinking about this incident now jents the story I'm about to share with you is really sad
really emotional and if this kind of stuff bothers you um down you know I'll provide a way to be able to skip it down in the description of today's video but I read about this incident the other day and I couldn't get it out of my mind for days I just I was thinking about it and I decided to put it into today's video because it just hit on something that I think so many with something that so many of us are bad about I mean because let's face it jents how many of you guys
actually know your neighbors talk with your neighbors check in on your neighbors how many of you guys actually are contributing to your local community so the incident happened over in the UK at the beginning of this year apparently uh there was a gentleman 60 years old older father was with his uh 2-year-old son and um he had a heart attack nobody came to check in on him and they found him uh I think uh it was like two weeks later 10 days later and is a little 2-year-old boy um ended up dying of dehydration or
starvation but they found him curled up next to his dead dad and I just read this story I just think of this little boy I I've got a two-year-old well she's almost two but sorry jents uh I put this in the video cuz I wanted to selfishly kind of give myself maybe a little bit of closure I don't even know the guy but I I feel like I know the plight I I hear from so many of you guys that are alone and I don't want you to die alone I don't want you to have
maybe someone that depends on you for you to let him down and again jent I want to stress I'm not making money off this video everything I make I'm donating because I'm pretty emotionally invested into this one if you can't tell uh I I really was on the fence about using the story I just talked about and sharing a lot of the stuff I'm going to be continuing to shareing this video but I reached out to a friend of mine and I asked him about and you know he was the advice he gave is hey
what do you feel compelled to do and I felt compelled to do this to to get this information out there because if it helps one guy if it makes a difference in one of your lives um it it'll have served as purpose and J uh believe it or not um this video is sponsored I'm not going to make any money on it uh I'm going to donate everything to the GoFundMe that was set up for the boy's name was Bronson and his dad's name was Kenneth um I'm just going to donate everything that I'm getting
paid for this video over there um because I do believe in um better help uh they're sponsor of today's video I believe in the power of therapy I believe that you need someone to talk to about this I was able to I'm happy I got a great relationship with my wife but I know so many of you guys don't you don't have anyone and that's why I love better help guys better help in case you don't know is the world's largest online therapy service they're 100% online and they've got over 30,000 licensed experienced therapists that
can help you deal with a number of issues the way it works Jance is you go to their website you're going to answer a few questions about your preferences your needs because they want to be able to match you to the right therapist once you're match with them you can talk to them however you feel comfortable whether it's text whether it's chat you can do a phone call you can do a video call on top of that you can message your therapist whenever you want and set up appointment times that work for you oh and
if for some reason there's not a great connection with you and the therapist you can find another therapist you can go through the process again at no additional cost and in nutshell jents with better help you get the same professionalism and quality as in office therapy but with a therapist that's custom pick picked for you with better scheduling flexibility and at an affordable price so to get started gents go to betterhelp.com Real Men Real style I'm putting that link in the description of today's video Jens if you use that link you're going to save 10%
off your first month so what does emotional maturity mean well maybe crying in a video perhaps you know I don't do it very often but I I think it's it's being okay with showing your emotions with realizing that you're a human being that there's nothing wrong with that and in fact it's healthy it feels good it's cathartic to get emotions out there but to realize that you've also got to keep them in check I do have anger issues and I know that if I don't go work out if I don't exercise and if stress builds
up that it's it's like a dripping faucet where you know that drip drip drip and eventually that water builds up and it can explode some of you guys you know you get it you've been around people that everyone's screaming for your attention people are treating you poorly everyone's stepping on your needs and it keeps hitting keeps hitting keeps hitting uh I think the ones I'm most ashamed of is whenever like I will hit the brakes on the car and freaks everyone out like I usually try to make sure like I don't know it's stupid and
I do it just to be able to grab attention but thinking like is that really the best way to and it wasn't that was a recent one um it's probably was a year ago the one I'm probably most ashamed of is my son I was down filming a video this is back when Real Men Real Style Just Got Started over a decade ago and yeah it's been a decade and um my son made a lot of noise upstairs he was getting ready for school and I came up and I yelled at him and I grabbed
there was like a bag or something and I threw it and I remember it hit the sink and it bent the sink um I've got a couple of those reminders one time I got so upset with uh I don't know something coffee and I smashed it down and it was a French filter and it somehow got all over the ceiling my point Jens is that a child throws in tantrum a man he learns to control his emotions his emotions are still there they're he feels them but he develops techniques develops ways to be able to
prevent his emotions from getting the best of them now this one is really tough for a lot of people me included um I remember having a conversation with a friend it was probably politics something you know you probably shouldn't always have a conversation about and I remember asking him you know if you received new evidence like information that was irrefutable that went against what you're saying here would you change your mind and he was straight up no like I am not like I am right and you realize that sometimes we get so caught up in
with politics with you know religion with all this is it it becomes our identity and we refuse to see what's in front of us for fear that somehow it's going to undermine us it's going to make us wrong or inferior or if something is wrong with us if this is not right and I've always had a problem with this maybe that's why I've got a problem with a lot of organized religions or even politics like I don't view myself as being one side I try to look at the person being presented in front of me
and do I think that they're going to do a great job takes a lot more time and I don't always do it right but you know I it's a question I ask myself on my strongest held beliefs would I change my mind on them if I was presented new information and I'd like to think that I I would actually consider and try to be open to that I think that's the mark of a wise men not very few men are able to do this but I think if you can if you can adapt if you
can adjust if you can learn and pick up information I think it really is something that is a great skill and is the trait of a man who's uh at a high level so of course this one had to be on the list courage I believe a man should be courageous and to become courageous I do I do think anyone can become courageous I think you need to practice doing small courageous acts so when the time comes whenever you have that big challenge in front of you and most of us never face a huge big
challenge um but you'll be like I've got a history of being a courageous man it's all those small steps all those small things some people think that you know courage is you know the absence of fear no that's being psychotic you know people have this idea that on the battlefield you're going to go save your buddy shells will be raining down you'll run through them very rarely does anyone ever face anything like that even in the military um again it's those day-to-day those small things are you taking steps in the right direction are you following
your dreams are you having the courage to say no when you know you need to do you have the courage to go after your dreams to become that man you know yourself to be unfortunately I don't think enough men have this type of Courage do you so how does that saying go success has 100 fathers and failure is an orphan when it comes down to taking responsibility to taking ownership it's really easy when things are going good but how to how to do it when when things aren't so good when things are bad especially with
things that are going on in your life because it's so easy to blame others when you play the victim when you put the blame on others you know there's nothing you can do about that at least in your mind but when you take that ownership even if you even if you shouldn't you know you you I feel like you can still take that power to make the difference that's what I love about people that are out there changing the world kicking ass is you see these guys they like oh yeah it's my fault and you
look at it's like well actually it wasn't fully your fault you could blame this but no they take it because they understand that this gives them the strength it gives them the power to go out there and make a difference now to want to make a difference it really helps when you've got this when you've got a purpose the key Point here is that to have Direction you need to have a goal you need to have uh a compass something that's giving you feedback and so many people in their lives maybe when they were kids
they had a goal they had a dream of what they wanted to be they got off track as most of us probably don't actually go that way and some of you guys are lucky or some of you guys maybe just stubborn but uh very few of us I think as adults take time take a step back and look at it what do I want to achieve with the time I've got left I'm fortunate I think that was one of the biggest things I did in this last year is I put together a dream board I
know kind of woo woo woo for people but man you know being coming into my office and seeing the house I want to build seeing the places I want to go seeing the family that I want to continue to be able to provide for I want to be able to help reach higher levels uh those kids you know I just love them seeing those faces there straight up J a man with purpose a man with direction is a man who is on his way so I was reading a report the other day talking about why
do most relationships fail and it was very clear when they looked at long-term relationships that lasted versus ones that failed whether it was 5 years into the marriage 20 years into the marriage and this also applied to friendships as well um it was a lack of respect it was cutting off communication but I know as men and and this was really big for us is that whenever somebody disrespected us whether it be our spouse whether it be our friends it was something that we we held and it really upset us and uh so that's why
I'm hitting on this from two angles here we're talking about the respect that you show yourself because you are somebody special you are somebody I mean think about there's no one else like you in the entire world you are the Pinnacle of your bloodline you have think about go back thousands of generations and the fact that you've made it this far is a miracle and when you think about that I mean so have respect for this body have respect for this mind and what it's capable of you have the same mind that was able to
put men on the moon the same mind that was able to develop tools that can see down you know that can measure atoms the same mind that is out there you know in the smartest Sky you've got one that is very very similar and you may not want to achieve what the guy's going after but have the self-respect to take care of this Temple take care of your body maybe eat better start exercising and then once you show yourself self-respect realize that everyone desires this many people can't even give it to themselves but you can't
lightly maybe in a small way just by simply saying thank you opening a door for another man simply bringing somebody flowers now I got flowers the other day from another man toal crazy story um I actually helped him uh recover his YouTube channel I'm not going to name him Travis awesome dude and uh I didn't expect anything and he sent me flowers and a whole bunch I mean it was he sent me additional stuff there was a whole basket my family loved it I didn't expect it but you know it made me feel great and
how can you show respect to another person who did a small thing for you didn't even think about it so this next word in many ways I think has fallen out of fashion and that's the word honor what does it mean to be an honorable man I've got a simple definition here and it is honor is intrinsic and its measure lies not in external accolades or recognition but in the quiet satisfaction of acting in alignment with one's principles in fact if you remember the movie robroy he talks about you know a son asks what is
honor and how does a man get honor a you know honor is isn't something that anyone can take from you it's a gift that A man gives himself when he knows who he is he knows what he stands for and he has the courage to stay true to those principles even under adversity so one of the best things that I did in college is I got a degree in philosophy yes I also got a science degree Origins Behavior but it was that degree in philosophy that I got for myself because I was just really interested
I had so many questions that double major and taking the time to take those classes and to read those books the classics that teach you to be self-reflective to understand what came before you it gives you those models to be able to work out the way why do we think and why do we feel and when you realize that so many men before you have lived very similar lives and dealt with the same problems the same issues you become in you start to look inside and you start to ask yourself you know what am I
here for what's the purpose um I still haven't fully found my purpose and what I'm here for but one thing I do and I'm reflective about and I want to thank you is that you guys pay attention to these videos you watch these videos um you know it's able I'm able to provide a living to my family I've got a team of uh of 10 people that have worked for me for years um we've got other businesses that help support us but I'm very grateful for your time for your attention and I'm really hoping that
in today's video you you got value from this and if you did maybe share it with somebody that could get value from it but uh if you've got something to add if you have thoughts on what it really means to be a man you're like Antonio you totally missed it you should have talking about you know being financially independent I yeah there were some practical stuff I could have added to this but let me know in the comments below take care Jens I appreciate you I'll see you in the next video boom right there check
it out it's got to be a good one yeah come on Bo right there
