The complete man
Where the whole story was heading. Not less of a man, more of one: five things you can train, and what it gets you. The strongest man is the one who needs nobody’s approval.
Not less of a man.
More of a man.
Everything you’ve read up to here comes down to one thing: you’ve only been allowed to be a small part of yourself. The complete man gives up nothing. He takes back what he was never allowed to use.
What would you simply like to be able to do?
8 of 64.
The difference comes down to one question.
"Do they still think I’m man enough?"
The answer lies outside you: with the group, with your boss, with the man next to you. They can withdraw it at any moment. That’s why it never stops.
"Am I free?"
The answer lies with you. Nobody can take it away and nobody has to confirm it. You’re master of yourself, and that makes you independent of the outside world’s judgement.
The strongest man in the room isn’t the one everyone is afraid of.
It’s the one who needs nobody’s approval.
We call him the complete man. Not the perfect man, just a man who is master of himself. Someone the people around him can rely on, and who feels at home in his own skin.
You know him. The man who stays calm while the rest wind themselves up. The master in the fight films who doesn’t need to show what he can do. He doesn’t care what the crowd thinks of him, and that’s exactly why everyone looks at him. That isn’t a softer masculinity, it’s the strongest there’s.
This is a skill, not a character trait.
Everything you clicked above comes back to five things. Nobody is born good at them, and you’re never too old for them. You can practise them, just like strength or fitness.
Staying calm under pressure
Staying calm when someone else blows up. This is the first thing top athletes and elite units train: settling your body at exactly the moment it matters. A man who can handle his own storm has no need to keep anyone else small. And you say far fewer things you regret the next morning.
And then there’s something that only comes once those five fall into place: passing it on. The man who teaches his son that he is allowed to feel, who backs up the younger colleague instead of tearing him down, who is the first to say something in the locker room. Not because he has to, but because he has something to give.
These five can be learned, like any other skill. We’re developing a long-term programme around them, for men themselves and for organisations that want to offer it. Stay in the loop →
The end of the test that never ends.
The biggest gain isn’t for the world around you. It’s for you.
Calm
No more constant tension about whether you’re man enough. That question hasn’t been answered, it has become irrelevant.
Health
Wearing that armour costs your body something. Less chronic tension means less cardiovascular disease and a lower risk of addiction.
Real connection
You no longer have to play a role with your partner, your children or your friends. You’re seen for who you’re, not for what you achieve.
And beyond that, something changes too. A man who can lead himself has no need to control the world around him. For his partner that means a safe place instead of a risk. For his children, a father who is really there. For his work, someone who brings calm instead of tension, and who becomes, without trying, someone people rely on.
This isn’t theory.
All over the world men are already working with this, with boys growing up just as you grew up. Not in a therapy room, but in the gym, at the kitchen table, in the locker room.
This is what it will look like.
Posters in the street, conversations in the locker room, men saying out loud what they’re going to do differently. This is an impression: at launch the real posters and the real responses will be here.
Put this up in my own street. Proud that it’s hanging there now. #EchtMannelijk
I say something to my mates when a joke about a woman goes too far.
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I show my son that crying is allowed. It makes him stronger.
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In our locker room we’ve agreed: we don’t laugh anyone off. #EchtMannelijk
For the first time I asked my father how he was really doing.
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Talked about it over drinks tonight. Good conversation. #EchtMannelijk
I went down to four days when my son was born. Best choice ever.
exampleYou don’t have to change the culture.
Work on yourself, and on the room you’re standing in.
This is where the whole story was heading. Not repairing the man, but giving him back what was taken from him young.
What you do today, someone else sees tomorrow. One man who drops the front gives the man next to him the proof that it can be done. That’s how it starts, every single time.
We’re building this movement right now, and you can help build it. None of us can change that culture on our own, but together we can. Men, women, parents, friends, employers. The more of us there are, the more normal it becomes.