Understanding Men: What Drives Us
Trying to understanding men always boils down to understanding what drives us.
If you want to understand the men in your life and why they do what they do, then keep these two points in your head: First, men are simple. Second, do not project how you think or feel onto how we think or feel because the two have nothing in common.
Men are not particularly complicated. We all are pretty similar in our thinking, and in what drives us. That is, 1) having our own life and identity, 2) doing something related to that identity, and 3)being compensated well enough for our efforts.
First part, our own life:
More important than what we say and how we say it, is what we are. I don’t care if a man is a doctor, lawyer, CEO, security guard, tough guy, pickup artist, or farmer, everything he does is filtered through that title.
A title = position which = status. Understand a job is not simply a job for a man, it is his identity. Each man has a dream of what he wants to be. He has an ideal self, and an ideal job.
When the real and the ideal are in harmony, he is happy. When he is working closer to the ideal, he is happy. When the real and ideal are two different things and he has no way of seeing how to connect the two, he is unhappy. It is as simple as that.
Next is his identity
A man's value comes from the work and position he holds. If a guy says he is a firefighter, then the work he does must fulfill that title (which is saving lives). It is not satisfying for a man to have an unearned position with unearned regard…like a firefighter who sits at a desk all day. He would not really feel like a firefighter, or be proud to be called a firefighter.
Gurbash Chalal, a young man who built a 10 million dollar-a-year advertising company by his 18th birthday, is a self-described serial entrepreneur and self-made millionaire. Being able to say I am Gurbash Chalal and I am a self made millionaire entrepreneur, or I am Jake and I am a firefighter who saves lives, is incredibly important.
Men do not simply want a title, they want the recognition that goes with that title. If they don’t genuinely earn the title, it feels meaningless.