We all know the guy who walks into the room and everybody takes notice. Not because he is overly handsome or is dressing in exceptionally fine clothes, most of us can't even put our finger on why we notice. Don't you want to be that guy? Every man wants to have that presence that just demands respect and notice, we all want to be that guy that there is just something about. Who does not want to have people listen when you speak? Who does not want to have people take notice that we are not only present but also that we have a commanding presence? Masculine men have a presence about them that is just incredible, who would not want to have that? Alright, men, I am going to share with you 11 ways to be more compelling as a man; to help you have that presence that everyone notices.
1. Eye contact - Eye contact may be one of the most important things that you can do. We all have had those conversations where someone just had a fixed gaze with us that was almost intimidating. Eye contact conveys more of a, respect me vibe than almost anything else you can do. When you talk to people look them square in the eye, don't look to the side or down or up or past them or just as bad through them. Men fix their gaze directly eye to eye with the person they are communicating with. This expresses with clear communication that I am here, in this moment, engaged with you. You will find this not only helps you engage with other men but this especially helps you with women. It lets a woman know that you are fully engaged with her. It is very important to a woman for her to feel like she is the center of your attention. Fair warning, this will make a lot of people uncomfortable as this is not something that is commonly taught in our society because it conveys strength. This is something I am even trying to teach my daughters because this will make you a better communicator overall when you start looking directly at people and stop seeing through them or something else.
2. Shake hands firmly – shaking hands goes way back in history. I believe I have talked about this in another blog. When you go to shake hands with somebody it needs to be a firm solid handshake. No limp fist, no light touch like you're afraid to touch them and for the record guys, handshakes are not a competition. Stop trying to “establish dominance” by squeezing someone's hand as hard as you can when you shake hands with another guy. The best result in that situation is that you look insecure. If the guy is secure in his masculinity he'll likely think it's just pathetically funny. Grasp someone's hand firmly, straight on, with slight pressure just enough to let them know that you are there. Handshakes used to be legally binding agreements that would seal a deal and will garner you a lot of respect among men and women alike as it establishes a masculine self-assured confident image of you.
3. Speak clearly - When you speak to somebody be sure to speak clearly and confidently. Take a minute and gather your thoughts before you speak, think about what you were going to say and formulate the words in your head. Once you have a clear thought of what you are trying to convey, open your mouth and speak. Do not speak too fast, try not to speak really slow although some of us are southern and that's difficult for us. Speak clearly each syllable and mind the pitch of your voice. Your emotional mental state of mind will be conveyed in the pitch of your voice and as we want to portray confidence in what we are saying and who we are, your pitch will show any weakness or doubt about what you're saying.
4. Walk Briskly - Now I want you to conjure up an image in your mind of two older women in tracksuits walking at breakneck speeds. Can you see it? Got the image in your head? Great, that is not what I want you to do. When I say walk briskly I’m not talking about speed walking like a retiree trying to get in shape. No, this is not a knock on retirees trying to stay healthy, but we all have that image in our head. That is not what you want to convey to people. When you walk; walk upright, chest-high, shoulders back, eyes forward and as my boss used to say, walk as if you have somewhere to be. This one was hard for me to get my head around at one point in life. My boss really got this one through to me. It's fine to strut or saunter or stroll when you have nowhere to go on a lazy walk with friends or family. The rest of the time you need to walk as if you have somewhere to be like there is something incredibly important waiting for you. This will tell people that you are a man that is in demand and his time is precious.
5. Posture (head up, chest out, and shoulders back) - This one just caught me funny because we touched it in the last one and I didn't realize it was next on my list. Everybody has seen the military movies, if you weren't in the military that's OK, but we all have that image in our head just like a pair of retirees speed walking. Sadly, it's often made fun of as genre or trope but it is something that they teach you in the military and finer private education establishments. Your posture conveys your presence in a major way, if you want to convey confidence in yourself your posture speaks volumes. I'm not saying that you have to have perfect military form, although I'm sure that wouldn't hurt you. If nothing else, for the sake of your own physical body, you should work to improve your posture. The way we live our lives today in society just destroys our posture naturally. We sit on our butts way too often and for way too long because we're either driving, working on a computer, or sitting in front of the television half the time. The most common position for most people is sitting facing forward with their arms stretched out in front of them and our back gets tired and so we slouch. This posture and position are not only unhealthy for your body it also takes away from your presence as a man. You'll hear people say if you run into a wild animal you're supposed to try and make yourself look big and tall, well guys it’s a jungle out there and the other animals are other men. Fix your posture and you'll fix your presence in amazing ways.
6. Be interested in other individuals (more curious) - This one will surprise most people, being interested in other people actually makes you more compelling as a man. Let me see if I can wrap up the psychology behind this. For full disclosure, I'm not a professional or psychologist this is my opinion and not any medical or scientific proof. I have years of experience working with people and so this is why I believe this. Confidence comes across to other people by being interested in other people. That is because insecurity makes you focus on yourself, insecure people need to keep the conversation and the focus on themselves to validate themselves. Men who are confident and self-assured do not need the world to revolve around them and that allows them to take interest in other people. Selfishness is a sure sign of insecurity so when you have the opportunity to engage other people they will understand that you are confident and secure because you don't have to be the center of attention. On a personal note, this will also make life much more interesting as the world is more interesting when you invest in other people.
7. Be interesting (have something to talk about) - Now obviously I don't know all of you who are reading this and to be honest this may be difficult for some people. It's hard to be interesting if you're not so the only thing I can tell you is if you're not particularly interesting then you've likely been missing out for a lot of years in your life. It's not hard to be interesting if you've lived your life fully from moment to moment. Let me be very clear, I am not talking about that stupid YOLO crap I've heard from this most current generation. What I am saying is that you should make every moment of your life count. And I truly hope you have to this point. If you have not, then start now! Take up a hobby, get out of your comfort zone and go enjoy your life, if you do that then you will never have a problem being interesting. There is only one you and, while there is nothing new under the sun, you have an individually unique position on your experiences. You may not be gifted as a storyteller, however, that doesn't mean that you can't be interesting.
8. Dress well (based on the occasion) - Now this is strictly an occasion rule. I know those worn-out blue jeans, that old T-shirt, your ball cap and your comfortable shoes are the standards for pretty much any occasion that you want to be a part of. Believe me, I understand, I'm that guy so I got you on this one. With that said, as much as it should be the required dress code for any scenario, it's not. Look, some scenarios require decent shoes and, you know, clean jeans with no holes in them. Or if you were raised like I was you may not have jeans with holes in them but you still have the worn-out faded blue jeans. The truth gentleman, big emphasis on the gentlemen part, there are a lot of times that we need to look at our roots as gentlemen. I'm not saying you need to wear a suit and tie all the time, or even that you have to wear a polo shirt and khakis regularly. My khakis probably have more dust on them than some of the books on my bookshelf. However, if you want to be a compelling man, you need to dress for the occasion or slightly better. If you're going out to a restaurant or just for coffee then it depends on who you're with but that's part of the definition of “it depends on the occasion.” Not going to go any further on that, if you dig down you know exactly the occasions I'm talking about and how you should dress.
9. Be healthy, lose weight - This one is a tender subject, a moment of self-honesty guys, not me but with yourself. If you are over the age of 25, have stopped playing sports regularly, work in a non-physical based job, or have gotten married and/or have children then you have likely put on a little unhealthy weight. A study showed 48% of Americans fall into the category of obesity, honestly I think that number is a little low based on seeing everybody around me. I don't know the rates of any other country off the top of my head, shout out brothers and sisters over in England and all across the world because I know I have at least one reader over in Great Britain. Thank you for that. We have become a very sedentary society as a whole, which is a broad generalization, I know. If you're under the age of 25 and still single, playing sports and in college, or working a full-time construction job maybe you haven't experienced this yet, you will though, it's just a matter of time. Gentlemen, we're not children anymore, this doesn't take a tell-all book or over the top advertising. The majority of people know whether what they're eating is a healthy choice for their body or not. I'm not going to go into great detail on this in this article as this is already going long, jump to my blog post “No more excuses, stop being fat and out of shape!”
10. Telling stories (cool things you've done) - I think I covered this pretty well under the heading of be interesting, so I'm not going to go long on this. Jump back to number 7 and read it again if you have any questions on this still. Everyone has that one friend who always has a crowd around them because they had cool stories because they're interesting. That person always seems to be in the middle of the crowd telling people about the cool things they've done. Live a life so you can be that guy.
11. Smile :) - this last one is kind of funny because it's like the easiest thing, the smile. Guys, I mean seriously, your face is an advertisement for whether you are approachable. I hear women joke about resting b**** face or RBF. Guess what, men have it too. We all have heard people say it takes X amount of muscles to frown and only X amount of muscles to smile. I'm here to tell you that for a lot of people those muscles have atrophied. Put a smile on your face, and not that stupid I'm an idiot grin. Just smile and let the world know you're approachable.
Thanks for taking the time to read this I hope you've learned something new. Comment down below which things you think you need to work on, I could tell you I definitely need to work on #9 and #8 for sure.
What do you think? What do you need to work on?
Be better tomorrow because of what you do today!
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