Chapter lll
What Will Make You An Alpha Male?
We’re near the middle of this e-book, but this is where it really begins. This is where I’ll guide you. I’ll take you through the various important life-changing lessons I’ve learned, which have now been made a part of my alpha personality… learnings and unlearnings that have helped me to gain full control of my life. And, believe me, it will create some great and superior changes in yours as well. Don’t think it’ll be over-the-top difficult. No. It’s not going to be like a woman shouting her lungs out delivering her first baby, but at the end of the day, it will be just as satisfying, just as gratifying.
So, roll up your sleeves, flex some muscles and psych yourself into becoming a real man. We’ve reached that point where you’ll hear the clapping of the clapperboard and the director’s “Lights! Camera! Action!”
Remember what you’re aiming for
I’ve talked often enough and simple enough about the reasons why you and I, as men, should become alpha males: it is the key to wealth, great relationships with the kind of women we want, and respect from peers in our chosen fields of endeavor. It is not going to be far-fetched, either, to be enjoying some level of fame and glamour, particularly if you move and take the lead in the popular world of sports, fashion and entertainment. There are, of course, other perks in the peripherals as you develop your alpha personality. Let them just serve as gravy. Go for that tender, delicious, melt-in-your-mouth Kobe steak.
You’ve got to want to become an alpha male!
There aren’t any two ways about this. If you want to have what’s out there, you’ve got to come in all the way and go the whole nine yards. Others call it passion. I’d like to call it heart. As the song goes… “You gotta have heart, lots and lots and lots of heart!” You’ll need it as we go along. But don’t fret; I’m here to help.
I’ve written this chapter to make it as easy as possible for you or anybody to follow. You don’t have to go and do the whole hog. You can do these things three or four steps at a time – but do them! It will help if you give yourself a ‘completion date’ of one week. I use ‘completion’ here loosely, for this alpha male make-over goes on with practice… till you tell yourself, “I’m now an Alpha male.” An Alpha male is direct and honest, so it will have to come from you. Now is as good a time as any to start. Here goes:
Building Up Your Confidence
One of the most important traits an Alpha male should have is confidence. Unless you were born to be king of England, or with similar high status, confidence doesn’t come on a silver platter. It’s something you work on, something you build on, one block at a time. And it’s there. You’ll just have to learn the techniques of developing it till it becomes a part of your personality.
Like most men, I wasn’t projecting enough confidence before. I’d used to just mope around feeling sorry for myself until, in one of the events I attended, I saw this man enter the room with such an aura of confidence, people could feel it. The women certainly took notice. I myself could feel it. Admiring the guy but feeling envious, I decided I wanted to be like him. Today, I AM like him! An Alpha male. He’s better looking than I am, but I AM like him!
Getting Started
An old, very good friend helped to get me started and, until that point, I didn’t realize he was an Alpha male himself. He urged me to adopt the following steps to raise my confidence level. He assured me that these were going to help in whatever I chose to do in the future. In the spirit of ‘paying it forward’, I’d like to share these with you:
Mind how you look to other people. Improve your appearance. I’m not talking here of going through a beautification program in one of those men’s salons and lathering yourself with all kinds of magic herbal creams sourced from Kathmandu or Turkey. No. But I am talking about taking some time for a basic grooming thing and dressing up appropriately. I am talking about a shower, shave and tooth brushing everyday. Getting your hair shampooed and combed or brushed nicely won’t hurt either. Throw away those running pants smelling of sweat and tattered tees. They make you look like a bum. Here’s the rule of thumb: Dress up everyday in such a way that if you saw your ex-girlfriend and wind-up for lunch in a restaurant, you wouldn’t be embarrassed.
Do some exercises. Nothing beats workouts in boosting male confidence. The blood flow that increases after you’ve flexed your muscles will make you feel good. And the hormones that are released? They’re not going to make you feel like Superman, but you’ll feel better than the next man. Forget about gym memberships. You can start exercising today, committing 15-30 minutes in a daily routine, jogging or walking briskly around the block or biking within your neighborhood.
Set goals and make sure you meet them. Men who set goals and achieve them become very confident. In essence, goals are actually promises we make to ourselves. If we can’t keep our promise to ourselves, how the heck are we going to be confident? Start today. Set a goal that you can meet today. Nothing fancy. If you love sleeping late, make a goal to get up early and do it! If you’re not organized and a lot of things in your everyday world are topsy-turvy, make a goal to plan out your day, and do it! As you set and meet these small goals, your confidence will begin to build up. When it does increase, you can set the bigger goals, and when you achieve them your confidence will be boosted even more.
Pull back and take stock of the successes you’ve had in the past. Look back to those moments when you were successful. These don’t have to be huge successes, but remembering them will tell you, you’re not a washed-out guy. Realizing that you can succeed will trigger more confidence to take on other challenges. Put them down in your notebook. Anytime you’re feeling like you need a confidence shot, look them up!
At this point, let’s pause a while… I’d hate for you to get an information overload. Take a breather and digest the thoughts and ideas of the preceding paragraphs. Okay, your five minutes are up! I’m back to my roll as a screaming first-class Marine drill-master.
You’ve got to START building your confidence now! (I’ve capitalized the word ‘START’. It’s now our operative word.) Not that you don’t have any confidence at all. Almost everybody has it in varying degrees. The degree that’s required, though, to become an alpha male is a bit above the ordinary. After all, confidence, wherever the alpha male finds himself, is one of his most defining traits. It’s what makes him stand out from the rest.
Here are some of the other things you should START trying in building your confidence.
1) START going after what you want. Don’t be shy or scared. Own your intentions. Be direct with whatever it is you want.
Let’s say you want to start a conversation with an attractive woman at the airport, in a party or any social or business event. Don’t disguise your intentions. Show her your interest. Walk directly to her, make eye contact and smile. Say something like… “I was just going to get a coffee, would you care to join me?” or something similar to that. You don’t think any woman would be turned off by something like that, right? Of course not! And unless you look like, and are dressed up like, the Boston Strangler, the conversation should continue smoothly. You can try this today, tomorrow, or on your Saturday night out, but you’ve gotta have heart to try it.
2) START Walking and moving with a strong body language. Go face a giant wall mirror and take your natural walk. Don’t pretend you’re Prince Charles doing his regal walk before Queen Elizabeth. Just do your natural walk and take a close look. Is your head bowed? Your shoulders slumped? Do you carry yourself with tension written all over your body? That ain’t confidence, baby! Learn how to walk with your back always straight and your chest open by letting your arms fall naturally on your sides. In fact, walk straight with your full height and head held up (you’ll be amazed at how tall you’ll look when you do this). Take several deep breaths as frequently as you can. They’ll help shake off that tension and project a relaxed, confident walk. Practice walking this way every day. In about a week’s time you won’t have to pretend you’re Prince Charles!
3) Walk and now START talking like a man. If you’ve got a naturally pleasant voice, that’s great. You’ll just have to learn how not to rush your words and talk at a steady, relaxed pace. You might want to put on some authority in whatever you’re talking about by lowering your pitch when you end your sentences. Talking this way will help to make you sound confident and pretty sure of yourself. Otherwise, if you’ve got a high pitch, squeaky-type voice, I’d suggest practicing lowering it every morning by reciting the alphabets in as low and deep a pitch as you possibly can (make it sound bass-like)… Eyyy … Beee… Ceee… Deee… When you do enough of these pitch-lowering exercises, this pretty soon becomes your natural speaking pitch. If you can afford it, get yourself a tape recorder, a mike and a headset and record yourself reading the paper’s front pages, also in as low a pitch as possible. You’ll see the improvements as you do this every morning. No budget for the recorder? No problem. Go to any corner of your house, flap your ears close and listen to yourself reading the papers aloud. I know this to be effective first hand. It’s what I did all summer long before college; it’s what got me the DJ job I was dying for at the local radio station. It was a short stint, but with pretty girls dropping by the station for hellos and song requests. I had a lot of fun.
4) START looking good, well groomed and sharp. None of this shaggy hair, untrimmed beard and tattered jeans. Try looking like you’re the top man of a dynamic advertising company, suited up in a sort of trendy way that shows you know where it’s at. Also, eating the right kind of food, getting enough sleep and a bit of exercising will go a long way towards improving your whole appearance. There is a lot of value in remembering what fashion experts call ‘dressing for success’. It’ll help raise your confidence level. And success does breed confidence, so…
5) START taking pride in those little successes you’ve had in your life. Take the time to work on developing certain things you’re good at. If you’ve got a gift for taking great pictures, for instance, take pride in it, pursue it and let it shine. No need to flaunt those dramatic black and white photos at every chance you get. Awareness of this personal talent will come through as you move in your social circles. So, short of taking up bullfighting lessons in Madrid to become a grand matador, look into your areas of potential success and go for it.
These are but a few of the doable techniques for building your Alpha male confidence. I urge you to START doing them – today! As we go on with this book, I will show you the other important aspects of becoming an Alpha Male, how to progress from there and start enjoying the wins!
Getting there
All this confidence-building work, other than boosting your professional career and creating a propensity for you to succeed in business and making money, has another great advantage. It will lead you to becoming a lot more interesting, appealing and attractive to women. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Men who move with confidence (and don’t mistake this for arrogance or cockiness) will always be extremely attractive to the opposite sex. Human behavior experts know it. Now you know it. Live by it.
I can’t overemphasize this enough: YOU’VE GOT TO WANT TO BECOME AN ALPHA MALE. It’s what will prompt you to take action not tomorrow but today. Once you start on the foregoing techniques I’ve lined-up, you and I have half the battle won.
The other half, which is just as important, is about becoming a leader. No, you don’t have to kill anybody to become a leader! But you gotta have heart and work at it.
The qualities you’ll need to develop as a leader in becoming an alpha male:
There’s always been this debate on whether or not a person is born a leader or he simply takes hold of his life and develops talents and abilities that make him a leader. The thing is, there are clear common personality traits that are found in leaders. They are highly intelligent and successful. In corporate America they represent about 70% of all senior executives. They couldn’t have all been born natural leaders. My premise is that any person who wants badly enough to be an alpha male and become a leader, can.
I’ve done it. You too can.
1) You’ve got to have a good, exemplary character. Let me make it clear that we’re not talking about religion here and being a saint. We are talking about being trustworthy. A leader needs to be known to live his life by good values, good ethics. He’s got to have honesty and integrity. These are what will earn him the right to have responsibility for others. He needs to be trusted. Deep down, you’ll have to ask yourself… Am I this? Or perhaps the better question would be… Can I be this?
2) You’ve got to be gung-ho about your career or your job, or if you’re advocating a cause, you’ve got to be enthusiastic about it and your role as a leader. People respond more eagerly to a leader exuding passion and dedication. You should be able to inspire and motivate people towards moving in a certain way. While you may be the leader, you’re also part of the team aiming at one common goal. You shouldn’t have any qualms helping in the dirty work.
3) You’ve got to be self-assured and confident. When you take control, you’ve got to do this in a calm, intelligent way. You’ve got to be able to respect others’ opinions and advice, not step on anybody’s toes or create conflict. You shouldn’t be afraid to make decisions. You’ll be making lots of them but your decision should always lead to what’s best for the majority.
4) You should be committed to the highest standards. Second best shouldn’t be good enough for you. You should remain steadfast and focused on the main purpose. In times of crises, you should keep a cool head and not loose control.
Looking at these four qualities for developing alpha male leadership, you’ll realize most are to do with your innate character – something you can’t simply grab and decide to become on the spot; or, it could possibly be a combination… something that’s both within you and something you have to work on. Pull back a bit and look at yourself closely. Take your time. Take all of 30 seconds. Only you know you. And then… imagine yourself being an alpha male… imagine yourself enjoying the wins and hey! Let’s get going!
It’s okay to fail and succeed
Looking back at our world history, it’ll be easy to recognize some of the alpha male leaders: Achilles. Alexander The Great. Napoleon Bonaparte. They saw opportunities where most other men saw failure. Know that sometimes an alpha male will stumble, but he’ll never see this as the end. He’ll stand up again. He’ll see this fall as a need-to-experience stepping-stone to success. And because he knows this, he builds enough guts to try things others won’t. To be sure, he’ll work harder for success, where others will simply throw in the towel.
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