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.

What To Do If You “Never Get Angry”

I know a lot of nice guys who say that they generally just don’t ever feel angry. I can relate to them, because I used to be exactly the same: I repressed my anger to the point where I didn’t even feel it any more. Yet certain situations would really bug me: when someone said or did something that should rightly have made me angry, I’d end up ruminating on it for hours, going over and over a conversation in my head replaying all the things I would have liked to have said until it drove me crazy. If only I had allowed myself to be angry! In fact, I was angry; but I just didn’t express it at the time and so I paid the price for it in self-recrimination later.

When we tell ourselves that we never get angry, we are just lying to ourselves. We’re playing the nice guy game to avoid conflict. And the problem with this is that we don’t end up standing up for ourselves. Feeling angry is normal: it’s an emotion that motivates us to stand up for what is important to us. If we repress our anger, we just end up angry with ourselves and that’s a recipe for misery and depression.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Cut Emotional Ties with Controlling Parents

I recently got a question about how to cut emotional ties with a controlling parent in response to my article on How to Recover from a Controlling Mother. I know a lot of guys struggle with the conflict that happens when we begin to break free from our parents during adolescence, and this can keep us emasculated for years while we continue to seek a controlling parent’s approval. It helps to know that the conflict that arises when we individuate is a perfectly normal process; albeit one that controlling parents often over-react to.

Mike writes:

I’m a 20 year old man.  I was adopted, my sister wasn’t.  Yes, I’ve grown up with a controlling mother.  I have always been musically inclined and have had a passion for music.  After high school, I wanted to take a year or two off to pursue this and generally dick around with my friends while I was young, and maybe figure out what I wanted to do with my life.  I had left high school with scholarships and an 88 average.  3 years later, I’m a third year University student in History (I had to take something in University, forced into choosing a major, she’s paying for it) I’m struggling to maintain a 75 in my University courses, I’ve been experimenting with drugs, and I have no clue with what I want to do. … Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Meet More Women

Do you ever wish that meeting beautiful women was as simple as walking up to them and saying: “Hi, what’s your name?” Well according to dating coach Jack D. Serrano, it is.

In the interview below you’ll learn that the key to meeting women is to take action and approach them. Stop trying to persuade women to like you and simply start looking for the women who already like you and have a natural chemistry with you. Most men fall into the trap of trying to persuade women to like them, and a lot of dating advice is based around this concept that leads to fear, frustration and a lack of confidence.

The antidote to approach anxiety is to simply ask yourself the question “Does she like me or not?” rather than trying to persuade her to like you. Forget about trying to “build attraction”, showing value or trying to make women like you. There are a lot of girls out there who will already like you; all you have to do is go out and find them. Conventional pick-up advice turns you into a persuader who messes up the natural chemistry that is already there between you and the women who like you for who you are.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

TantricBlossoming’s Being Man Retreat

I turned up to the Tantric Blossoming Being Man retreat with a sense of excitement about experiencing more of this “Tantra” thing that I’d heard about in my [intlink id=”1293″ type=”post”]interview with Tantric Practitioner David Anderson[/intlink]. It was clear to me that Tantra had to be experienced rather than merely talked or read about, and I felt ready to dive in. From what I knew about David and his co-leader Martina Hughes, I figured there would be some great experiences in store.

At the same time, I also felt tremendously relieved just to be able to take some time out from my not-so-normal life. The panic attacks that I had experienced only a couple of weeks before were still very fresh in my memory; they had seriously undermined my confidence and the lingering fear of their possible return weighed heavily on my mind. Being overwhelmed by fear and anxiety seemed the antithesis of where I was trying to head in my life, and I wasn’t happy about it. Confident Man, my ass; the previous few weeks had felt more like panicky, fearful little boy to me.

By comparison with the panic attacks, my usual thoughts on meeting a new group of people faded into insignificance: “Would I fit in?”,… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

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