Graham Stoney

I struggled for years with low self-esteem, anxiety and a lack of self-confidence before finding a solution that really worked. I created The Confident Man Program to help other men live the life of their dreams. I also offer 1-on-1 coaching via Skype so if you related to this article contact me about coaching.

Are You Afraid Of Talking To Beautiful Women?

I’ve read a lot of books on talking to women, and most of them never even mention the core problem a lot of men I know face when it comes to talking to beautiful women.

This problem may arise as [intlink id=”599″ type=”post”]approach anxiety[/intlink], not knowing what to say, feeling like you’re never good enough, putting women an a pedestal, trying to get beautiful women to like you, or just plain being overwhelmed with fear around hot women.

And it all comes down to feeling powerless around them.

If you feel powerless around the women you’re attracted to, it’s probably due to something you learned early on in life and are still hanging onto because subconsciously you believe that your very survival is at stake.

The question to ask yourself if you suffer from this is:

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By Graham Stoney, ago

The Secrets To Getting What You Want In Life

Have you ever found yourself getting angry with someone, and wondering why? Chances are they were stopping you in some way from getting your needs met. For instance, I was recently at a Shamanic Journeying and Soul Healing workshop, where I found myself getting increasingly angry with an obese woman who was dominating the workshop with her stories of past lives, astral traveling and other new-age nonsense. We ended up in a conflict which ultimately led to me getting what I wanted, and reminded me of some of the secrets to getting what you want in life.

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By Graham Stoney, ago

The Single Biggest Mistake Of My Life

I was telling a female friend of mine recently about a realisation I’d come to regarding the single biggest mistake of my life. The one that had caused me more pain and grief than anything else.

The biggest mistake I ever made was taking on a false belief. An idea, the consequences of which were enormous. It fundamentally changed how I behaved around other people, leading me to suppress and alter my whole concept of who I was. This one belief and it’s consequences led me to end up hating myself and thinking there was something wrong with me.

It’s an idea that I took on so early in my childhood that I can’t even remember when I decided to believe in it. Although I borrowed this idea from the people closest to me while growing up, it was still my choice to adopt it in my own life; something I now regret.

So what was the faulty idea behind the biggest mistake of my life?

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By Graham Stoney, ago

How To Connect More Deeply With Women

I was recently coaching a friend of mine who is highly successful in business, but really struggles when it comes to connecting with women. What I noticed most strongly in our conversation was that my friend talked mostly about what he thought, and very little about how he felt. This was a strategy that served him well in the business world, but didn’t work so well when it came to establishing connections with women.

Man and Woman Connecting

Photo Courtesy PhotoXpress.com.

If you want to connect more deeply with women, emotions are the key. Most of us guys have received a great deal of education on how to think, but very little on how to handle feelings. We rarely disclose how we feel to other people, and we aren’t good at acknowledging other people’s emotions either.

Our emotions are a deeply powerful part of our experience of life, which is why they are so important in connecting more deeply with other people. Women are generally much more aware of how they feel than us men are, partly because they’re biologically wired that way, and partly because they’ve usually spent a lot more time talking over their feelings with their girlfriends. Most men on the other hand are often out of practise when it comes to relating emotionally, because it’s often been seen as weak, or as a poor second to relating intellectually.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

Christian Teaching That Can Undermine Your Self-Confidence

I’ve been thinking lately about how much my self-confidence was undermined by what I was taught as a child in the church where I grew up. Even long after I had abandoned the belief system on a conscious level as an adult, I still felt the emotional effects of having my sense of self eroded and my self-belief undermined. There are some positive aspects of Christian teaching, but these didn’t sink in for me as deeply as the negatives. Even if you still believe in the basis of Christianity, I suggest you start questioning some of these Christian teachings which can undermine your self-confidence:

Blessed Are The Meek

Image courtesy sxc.hu

Yeah right. Try telling that to Genghis Khan. Now I’m not suggesting that you should go and invade half of China, but if ever there was a teaching designed to simply appease the masses, this is it. It would be more accurate to say “Blessed is the man who believes in himself and valiantly goes after what he wants in life without attachment to getting it”.

You Were Born Into Sin

The basic notion that we are born into original sin is flawed. The truth is that you were born exactly as nature intended.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How To Be A Sexual Man

You might think that being a sexual man would come naturally to every guy; but many of us have had our natural connection to our sexual energy beaten out of us through a combination of family experiences, religion, societal conditioning and past experiences where acting in a sexy manner towards women has led to us being rejected or punished in some way. Self-confidence and sexual confidence are one and the same, so learning how to get back in touch with our innate sexuality is very powerful.

Being A Sexual Man

Martina Hughes

With this in mind I recently attended a seminar on Being A Sexual Man led by Tantric practitioner Martina Hughes from TantricBlossoming.com. It’s great to hear a woman talking about how women want you to be up front with them about your sexuality, rather than hiding it or “leaving your penis at the door” in your interactions with women. When we pretend that we’re not sexual beings in order to get women to like us, we’re playing the Nice Guy game and often end up falling into the friend zone where we feel frustrated and emasculated. This doesn’t work for us, and it doesn’t work for the women in our life either.

When our sexuality is repressed, our life force is repressed.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

Converting Business Success Into Confidence With Women

I know a bunch of guys who are very successful in their careers, but still lack confidence with women. Coming from an engineering background originally, my experience has been that career success doesn’t always translate automatically into feeling confident interacting with girls. In fact, some of what we learn as men about being successful vocationally can work against us when it comes to the fairer sex.

Cute girl in a bikini with a laptop

Success in Business May Not Translate Into Success With Women

Women want a well-rounded guy who is successful in business but they also need to be able to connect and relate to us in order to get to know us more deeply. The biggest mistake I see successful career guys making with women is attempting to apply the same strategies that work for them in the business world to their relationships with women. After a few relationship failures, the once confident guy’s self-confidence starts going down the tubes as he blames himself for not getting the relationship he wants; or even worse he becomes bitter and resentful of women for not liking and accepting him the way he is. The problem isn’t him; the problem is the strategy he’s using unconsciously to connect with women, and simply changing strategy can make all the difference.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

Getting Angry With My Father

I’ve spent the last few years working hard on connecting more deeply with my father, motivated by a few reasons: For one, I felt I was missing something in my own sense of self; a connection to my own masculinity that would normally comes from a boy’s father. I also found myself feeling a profound sense of grief and loss towards my father, which seemed particularly odd given that he’s still very much alive and kicking. And then other men I’ve talked to whose father’s had died have often told me how much they regret not connecting on a deeper level and getting the chance to ask questions they’d long for an answer to, while he was still alive.

Being Angry With Our Father Can Be Challenging

Frankly, it hasn’t been an easy process. My experience of my father is that he talks about his experiences in excruciating detail that is totally devoid of emotional content. This often leaves me switching off and ending up feeling isolated, lonely and depressed in his presence. He says things that just aren’t very interesting and appears to show no regard for whether his listener finds the conversation engaging or not. When he tells me about visiting a relative or going to a concert, I’m likely to hear more about the parking and travel arrangements than whether he enjoyed the actual event itself.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

The Hero’s Journey From Frightened Boy To Confident Man

I’ve been fascinated lately to discover the work of Joseph Campbell and his book The Hero With A Thousand Faces. Campbell’s life work involved analysing the myths, legends and stories of every nation, culture and religion to identify common themes and patterns between them. He found a striking commonality between the stories of different cultures and identified a pattern which seems etched in the human psyche that he called The Hero’s Journey. Think of any major blockbuster movie or movie franchise like Lord Of The Rings or Star Wars, and you’ll see elements of The Hero’s Journey. I also see a remarkable parallel with the adventure that every man is called to in growing from a frightened boy into a confident man.

The hero of every man’s story is ourselves. Not necessarily who we are now, or who we think we are; but our real self that only emerges as the journey progresses. It’s the journey from boy to man, but also the journey of self-knowledge, stepping into our own power, being more authentic and ultimately being free. So here’s how I see men growing up fitting into the framework that Campbell identifies for the every man hero:

The Hero's Journey is also a metaphor for growing from a boy into a man

The Hero’s Journey

Initially, we live in the protected world of childhood.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago