Helping Men to Be Confident

Always Have Something To Say When Talking To Women

Ever worry that you’re going to run out of things to say when talking to a woman? It seems like the more attractive the women, the more fearful I get of that awkward silence when I don’t know what to say. One solution is to learn a bunch of canned routines and prefabricated stories that we can punch out to avoid the awkwardness; but using other guy’s stuff grates on me and somehow I never get around to polishing my own stories for use in social situations. I’d rather be spontaneous and live in-the-moment, responding to the flow of conversation rather than trying to control and manipulate it all the time. If only there were a way to learn how to do that…

Well it turns out there is!

Over the last few months I’ve fallen in love with Theatrical Improvisation, also known as Improv. This is the technique that comedians and actors use to be spontaneous on shows like Whose Line Is It Anyway, and the results are often hilarious. Lately I’ve been doing every Improv class and workshop I can get to. The rules of Improv really appeal to me because they’re all about freeing yourself from your own constraints and letting your natural creativity flow spontaneously.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Connect With Your Inner Warrior

Regardless of how you currently feel about yourself and your confidence as a man, all of us have an inner warrior with genuine self-esteem, inner strength, a sense of purpose, a mission in life, and the self-confidence necessary to go after what we really want. The question is how to get in touch with your inner warrior? The answer is to go on a heroic journey of initiation, self-discovery and growth towards your authentic self.

Changing the world one man at a timeWe can’t undertake this journey alone, so I recently spoke to Boysen Hodgson from The ManKind Project to find out more about what that organization offers men seeking more confidence, clarity and direction in their lives. Here are some of the lessons from this interview:

To connect with the warrior within, we need to go on a heroic quest of adventure. It’s normal to resist the call to adventure initially due to our fear of being seen for who we really are, but the challenge is necessary to discover the resources within us that we aren’t currently aware of.

We decide during childhood who we need to be in order to be accepted, and then get stuck in that childhood decision as an adult long after it has been useful to us.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

Do You Avoid Love For Fear Of Getting Hurt?

Everything we do is motivated by one of two things: seeking pleasure or avoiding pain. It’s not entirely black and white since sometimes it’s a mix of both, but usually one or the other is the dominant factor. Some of us tend to be more motivated by pleasure and others more motivated by pain.

Our actions are always motivated by how we expect to feel, and this basically comes down to pleasure versus pain. Yet the two go hand-in-hand: many of the most pleasurable experiences in life involve the risk of pain.

Another way of looking at this is love versus fear. We’re either acting out of love, or we’re acting out of fear. Perhaps it’s a combination of the two. Often we’re not even aware of the underlying motivation but if we look closely we can see that it’s usually one or the other.

Acting out of love means being vulnerable and since this exposes us to the risk of painful rejection we often don’t want to risk it. It seems easier and feels safer to be defensive and act out of fear. But when we do this we miss out on loving and being loved. Our willingness to risk being vulnerable determines how much love we get.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

8 Things Women Wish Men Knew

Communication between the sexes. It’s always been difficult, and even as the workplace and the world in general open up more and more to women, we all still know that men and women are a little different. We think differently, speak differently, and expect different things. But when we share these differences, we can dramatically improve communication and relationships.

Guys, whether you’re married with kids, a newlywed, or just looking for love at the moment, read this list of eight things most women wish you knew, and remind yourself of them often. If a man can get these eight things right, he’ll definitely notice a difference in his relationship with just about any woman.

1. You don’t have to fix all our problems.

Whether it’s because of nature or socialization, women tend to be more relationship and feeling oriented creatures than men. While men like to solve problems with concrete solutions, women need to talk things out and be understood. Numerous studies have confirmed this, including one recent study through the Harvard School of Medicine. This study showed, that women and men were happier in their marriages when both partners made an effort to understand the feelings of the other partner.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Make Money by Linking To Articles on ConfidentMan.net

I get a lot of feedback from men (and women sometimes) saying that they really appreciate the helpful free articles on ConfidentMan.net. By linking to these articles from your own blog or website you can help share them with other men; and here’s another incentive for linking to the site: you can earn money in the form of affiliate commissions whenever a visitor you refer buys a copy of the Confident Man ebook.

So here’s how to create links to these articles that can earn you money:

Firstly, you need an account with ClickBank. It’s free to sign up as an affiliate by clicking here and selecting Promote Products and Sign Up. You don’t need to be a vendor, just an affiliate. If you’re already a ClickBank vendor or affiliate, you can skip this step.

Next, you need to know which article on the site you’d like to link to. Any article you like will do. Perhaps you’re writing a piece on your website related to something I’ve said, or you want to comment on one of my articles on your blog, or you just want to place a link to an article you really like in your sidebar.

So let’s say you want to link to the article on How to Recover From a Controlling Mother.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Feel Confident in Conversations

The way we speak in conversation with other people says a lot about how confident we feel, yet we’re often unaware of the subtle nuances of the way we’re communicating and the resulting message we’re sending about our self-image to other people. Simply changing the way we converse can boost our general level of confidence. When we hear ourselves communicating more effectively it reminds us of our innate power and inner confidence. And when others experience us as a powerful communicator, we connect better, gain greater trust and respect, and become the sort of person other people want to be around.

So here are some simple, easy ways to converse with greater confidence:

Be Clear and Direct, Avoiding Waffle

Ever notice how some people you talk with say the same thing over and over, rephrasing their point in different ways without ever stopping to ever see if you got it or not? As they waffle on and on, you find yourself losing interest and feeling confused about what it is they are really saying.

Confident communication is clear, direct and succinct. The fewer words you can make a point in, the more powerful it will be. Strunk and White’s advice in their classic book on writing The Elements of Style is equally applicable when speaking: make every word tell.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Recover from a Critical Parent

Having one or more critical parents can put a sledgehammer through your childhood confidence and leave effects lasting long into adulthood. If your father or mother responded with criticism and judgment instead of joy and delight when you did what came naturally, you may have felt as if there was something wrong with you and internalized their critical voice inside your head. You learned to hold back and now every time you step out of line or go to express yourself naturally, you rebuke yourself first instead. This will seriously undermine your self-confidence and your relationships with other people… especially women.

But there is hope. Here’s How to Recover From a Critical Parent:

Understand That Criticism Is About Projection and Loneliness

Critical people are stuck in a perpetual vicious cycle of projection, pain, loneliness and disconnection. They’ve been hurt at some point in the past when they felt vulnerable and they’re still carrying this wound in their psyche. Often they’re afraid of facing the pain they feel around this and don’t know how to deal with the unpleasant emotions involved, or perhaps they aren’t even consciously aware of it. The criticism that pushes people away further prevents them from experiencing the deep connections with others that would reduce their loneliness and heal the very hurt they are avoiding by criticizing others.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

The Simple Secret to Self-Esteem

Most of my life I’ve struggled with finding self-esteem and although my life is still a work-in-progress, I believe I’ve finally discovered the simple secret to self-esteem. I could write a book on it, but I think the shorter the book the more powerful it would be and I can cover the whole deal in one short article. As a bonus, I’m even going to throw in the cure for loneliness. So here goes:

Self-esteem is really about self-acceptance. This needs to come from within us, because when our self-acceptance is based on external reinforcement we are always at the mercy of circumstances outside our control such as other people’s opinions and random events in our life.

Our deepest, most powerful internal experience of ourselves comes from how we feel. While we aren’t our feelings, they are a true reflection of our core experience in any moment.

We also have a fundamental need as humans to connect with other people, so our ability to connect in general has a huge impact on the way we see ourselves. While we don’t want our self-esteem to be dependent on what other people think or feel about us, connecting with other people fulfills this basic need and gives us a powerful emotional reinforcement.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

Courage, Vulnerability and Connection vs Shame and Guilt

I’m a big fan of TED talks, and I love the speakers who have the confidence and courage to talk directly from the heart. One of my favorites in Brené Brown’s speech The Power Of Vulnerability, which you may have heard me rave about before. Every time I watch this speech, I find it connects me to a deeper to my own feelings of fear and shame around being vulnerable.

I’m still working on overcoming my deeply rooted fear of other people knowing how I’m feeling, and for me this is the essence of vulnerability. Watching this speech moves me to tears and I know that means that I’m healing my own fear and shame around feeling vulnerable in the past, which leaves me feeling more confident for the future. Which is why I keep coming back to this talk every few months for more.

Brene’s research into human connection and vulnerability led her to explore the emotions of guilt, and it’s rarely discussed cousin: shame.

Connection with others gives purpose and meaning to our lives. It’s why we’re here. When you ask people about love, they tell you about heartbreak. When you ask people about connection, they tell you about disconnection.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago