The Art of Manliness: Classic Skills and Manners for the Modern Man (33 page)

Practicing the Virtue of Silence

Listen more than you speak.
We could all benefit a great deal if we opened our ears and shut our mouth more often. Make it a goal in each conversation to speak less than the other person.

Think before you open your mouth.
Many a man has had to stick his foot in his mouth from time to time. These embarrassing slips of the tongue can easily be prevented if a man takes some time to think about what he’s about to say.

Don’t fear the silence.
As you interact with others, lulls in conversation will inevitably arise. When conversing with new acquaintances, filling in these gaps is considered polite and sociable. But once you become more intimate with someone, the nervous need to constantly fill the silence will come off as insecure. A comfortable silence builds rapport just as well as ceaseless chatter.

Fill your mind with virtuous and well-ordered thoughts.
When people apologize for lacking a brain to mouth filter, their real problem is not a porous sieve but a disorderly mind. What you speak is a mirror of what you think. Filling your mind with positive, clear, intelligent thoughts will ensure that what you speak will benefit others and yourself.

Order

“Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.”

Franklin chose order as his third virtue because it “would allow [him] more time for attending to [his] projects and [his] studies.” Franklin understood that if he wanted to get important things done in his life, he had to make sure the little things wouldn’t get in the way.

The lives of men today are far busier and distraction filled than Ben could ever have imagined. Unfortunately today’s society too often equates unfettered masculinity with chaos and sloppiness. Yet this association is patently false; just ask your local drill sergeant.

In the military, a great amount of time and energy is spent on instilling the virtue of order. When a recruit enters basic training, he quickly learns to perfectly make his bed, neatly pack his possessions in his footlocker and religiously shine his shoes. He learns to eat, shower and dress far more efficiently than he ever thought possible. If a soldier does not meet these standards, he is swiftly punished. So what’s the big deal? What does the military understand about order that many civilian men overlook?

Order develops attention to detail.
In the armed forces, details can mean the difference between life and death. Even a mundane task like keeping an orderly bunk strengthens a soldier’s eye for detail. Attention to detail is important in civilian life as well. The man who has an eye for details is more likely to succeed in his career than the man who doesn’t.

Order creates standardization.
Each armed force has a standard way it wants its soldiers to organize their bunk. By maintaining orderly surroundings, soldiers can focus on what’s truly important. When a soldier is awakened in the middle of the night because his unit is under attack, the last thing he wants to think about is where he put his gun. Likewise, creating standardization in your own life helps you focus on your highest priorities.

Creating Order in Your Life

Create systems.
Creating orderly systems allows you to free up valuable mental resources to devote to more important matters. For example, establishing a place in your home to put your keys, wallet and cell phone will enable you to pick them up each day without having to frantically search for them.

Another system you can set up is batching. Batching is grouping similar activities together and doing them all at once. For example, instead of wasting time throughout the day checking and answering e-mails, check and answer them all at once.

Automate.
Look for areas in your life that can be put on autopilot. One area in your life that you can easily implement this is your personal finances. Most banks provide automatic bill-paying services and depositing. Set it up, forget about it and get to work on conquering the world.

Plan weekly.
Every Sunday set aside an hour to plan your coming week. Formulating an attack plan will keep you focused on your priorities.

Do it now!
The greatest single way to increase order in your life is to adopt “Do it now!” as your daily mantra. After you get out of bed, turn around and make it. After you receive a piece of mail, take action on it immediately. If you drop a sock on the floor, pick it up without hesitation. It’s not as easy as it sounds; the natural tendency of the entire universe is to go from order to chaos. Overcome this pull to the path of least resistance by repeating the mantra “Do it now!” and pushing through this force. By employing the “do it now” rule, things will never pile up to the point that setting them right seems like an insurmountable task.

Resolution

“Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.”

In 1912, while campaigning for a third term as president in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Theodore Roosevelt was shot in the chest at close range by a would-be assassin. The bullet, slowed by a steel eyeglasses case and a folded speech, lodged in his rib.

Roosevelt’s manly resolve was unwavering. Refusing medical attention, he insisted on proceeding to the auditorium where ten thousand people waited to hear his speech. Mounting the stage he showed the audience his bloody shirt and said:

“I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a bull moose.”

TR then spoke for a full ninety minutes before finally consenting to be taken to a hospital.

Resolution is a virtue that is as needed in crisis situations like the one Roosevelt faced as it is with daily mundane tasks. Franklin included resolution as his fourth virtue, because attaining it would ensure he would work through the other nine. He understood that resolution is the virtue that all other successes in life are predicated on.

The virtue of resolution is one that marks a man’s passage from boy to man. A boy will dabble in a thousand pursuits and then drop them when he gets bored or they become too difficult. A man will always finish what he starts. The virtue of resolution is thus inextricably tied up with that of integrity. The resolute man does what he says he will do, no matter what the cost.

Developing Your Resolution

Resolve how you will act when faced with a challenge, before you are faced with it.
Three presidents had been assassinated during Roosevelt’s lifetime, and he had long prepared himself to meet a similar fate. Such forethought allowed him to remain levelheaded and resolute when it happened. Like TR, there are certain physical and ethical tests you will assuredly face during your life. Decide now how you will handle these challenges, and when you’re put to the test, you won’t be tempted to
throw up the sponge
.

Make an educated decision.
When deciding which course to pursue in life, take some time to study the options and gather as much information on them as possible. Once you have come to a decision, write down the reasons for your choice. This way, as you take on a project or a journey, and times get tough, you can return to your journal, remember why you made the decision in the first place, and feel confident in continuing to move forward.

Don’t look back.
Resolution requires the cultivation of single-minded determination. Continually looking back and asking “What if?” will severely impede your progress. It’s tempting to straddle the fence and try to have it both ways. Yet in attempting to live in two choices at once, you will find that you truly inhabit neither one. Regret is the arch nemesis of resolution.

Write down your goals every day.
It’s easy to be distracted by the mundane details of life and have them cloud your vision of greater things. Cut through this haze by writing down your goals every day. This action will keep you focused on the task you wish to accomplish and motivated to maintain your resolve.

Frugality

“Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.”

I was once watching a TV show in which a roundtable of gurus was dispensing financial advice to the studio audience. One of the advisors suggested people give up little luxuries like a daily Starbucks run and save and invest that money instead. A woman in the audience stood up and cried, “But what if I don’t want to give up Starbucks?” The crowd roared and clapped in approval. And a member of the Greatest Generation rolled over in his grave.

How to Be Frugal

We could cover some of the thousands of personal finance tips found in numerous books and websites on the subject. But all that info obscures a very simple fact: Being frugal is insanely easy. Here’s what you do: Don’t spend more than you take in. If you can’t afford something, don’t buy it. That’s it.

So if frugality is so simple, why don’t more men embrace it? They simply don’t see the benefits. Men today, suckled on the teat of MTV’s
Cribs
and raised in a culture of entitlement, see frugality only in terms of sacrifice. Frugality is thus in need of some serious rebranding (hiring Ebenezer Scrooge as its spokesperson was a big mistake). Because frugality is not so much about buying toilet paper by the pallet as it is about manning up and embracing an independent, self-reliant and truly authentic life.

Why Being Frugal Is Essential to Manning Up

Frugality keeps you out of bondage.
Maneuvering the apostles
may seem like an easy way to buy whatever you want, but eventually it will catch up with you. Debt is slavery. The interest that accompanies high consumer debt never sleeps or dies. If you can’t pay it, it will crush you. Frugality frees you from these shackles and affords you the liberty of financial independence.

Frugality helps you be self-reliant.
Your grandfather lived by the mantra: “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” Of course it’s hard to “make it do” if you don’t know how to fix it. So learn some invaluable handyman skills and start enjoying one of the manliest satisfactions in life: knowing you can skip the repairman’s bill and do it yourself.

Figure 8.2 Learn some invaluable handyman skills and start enjoying one of the manliest satisfactions in life: knowing you can skip the repairman’s bill and do it yourself.

Frugality creates an authentic self.
Our consumerist society wants us to believe that we are what we buy. But despite what advertisers tell us, we are made up of the things that cannot be purchased—our values, ethics, minds, relationships and hobbies. Frugality forces you to find an identity that can’t be bought off the shelf. Instead of buying an SUV or a North Face jacket to feel outdoorsy, you go camping. Instead of buying expensive free trade coffee, you serve at a soup kitchen. By making the decision not to spend your money on stuff to make you feel better, you can start spending time developing the habits and traits that will make you a better man.

Industry

“Lose no time. Be always employed in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary actions.”

What Benjamin Franklin called “industry,” Theodore Roosevelt called living the “strenuous life.” TR’s dedication to sucking the marrow out of life is unparalleled. His hard work and enthusiasm allowed him to do all of the following things during his sixty years of life: