How to Be an Alpha Male

Look, anyone who tells you that men don’t want to be the Alpha in the room is full of shit. For centuries we have been conditioned to compete with each other for dominance.

 

Who’s got the best grades?

Who is the fastest?

Who gets laid the most?

Who is the smartest?

Who is the most connected?

Who is the best looking?

Who has the best car?

Who went to the best college?

Who is the most confident?

Who got the promotion?

Who has the hottest wife?

Whose company is bigger!

 

Inside every single man, young old, black, white, gay, straight, bi, cis and trans is the desire to be better than others. It’s built into us.

 

And with all of this talk about dismantling the patriarchy and ending toxic masculinity, being an alpha male has been getting a bad wrap.

 

But if each and every man has a deep desire for significance and power, why are we avoiding this truth? Why are we all of the sudden shifting the focus so far from dominance and power?

 

I’m tired of us running from our truths so I thought it was about time that I publish a simple “how to” on becoming an alpha male.  Below are a few simple steps to stepping into your alpha and dominating the competition.

 

1.   Stop Defining Your Value by Comparing Yourself to Others.

The least alpha thing you could do is to be concerned with being an alpha male. When a man is at his best, he has dropped the childish comparisons and he is self-defined. He doesn’t care if he has more than others or less than others. He is confident in his value no matter how he “measures up”. The only thing an alpha male is really concerned with is by measuring how in or out of alignment he is with his own value and vision for his life.

 

2.   Understand YOUR Values

You’ve been hoodwinked. Your whole life you have been taught to create a life based on other people’s values. What you wear, where you live, the job you have, the sports you play, the TV you watch, it’s all been prescribed for you. You probably think that you have made conscious choices to create your preferences but most of us have not. Our values were handed to us by our family, our community, our religions, our schools, our content we consumed (TV, Video Games, Music), our sports heroes, our movie stars, our fathers and grandfathers. For some of us, with a more conscious upbringing, our values may have been borrowed from thought leaders, authors, and professors. But few of us have applied radical inquiry to these values and made choices as an adult without all of those other “hands on the wheel”. An alpha defines his own value and his own values. We respect our past leaders, influencers and ancestors, but what is most important to us, is detached from the influence of those who came before us, we blaze our own trails.

 

3.   Cultivate Emotional Mastery

This is different than emotional control. This is when a man has full access to his emotions. He can feel them readily. He is no longer emotionally constipated, yet his actions are not driven by unconscious emotional reactions. This is when he has worked on emotional intelligence, emotional competence, and mindfulness and communication skills. When a man has not done so, he is at the will of others. It’s easy to manipulate and control him. It’s easy for him to do things that he will regret because he was repressing his emotions and then they came out sideways to hurt him or the people around him.  An alpha can access and feel his emotions, allowing him to connect with intuition, empathy, compassion, passion, and love. He’s done the work.

 

4.   Get Embodied

Leaders are embodied. When they aren’t embodied, their leadership pays a price. An alpha male has connection to his body and love for his body. He can push his body to its limits with physical fitness but can also know when it’s time to relax and pamper his body. He cares about his energy, mood, sleep, metabolism, nutrition, and sensuality. He prioritizes how his body feels and if he is in alignment with his own definition of health. He cares about his relationship to his body and how he uses it and loves it more than he cares about how it looks. It’s nice to have abs, but it’s nicer to be able to use the body as a tool for intimacy, intuition, connection, pleasure, emotional regulation, and psychological challenge. Because an alpha is not deriving his value from what others think, he is willing to look “silly” as he reaches burn out and can’t do that next rep at the gym and willing to take a candlelit bath and brag about it to his homies.

 

5.   Drop the Idea of Alpha

A true alpha male would have no concern over the notion of what an alpha is or isn’t. He is too busy living his best life to give that concept any thought at all. He’s not concerned over competing with and dominating other men. He knows that this world is abundant and he isn’t competing for love, money, attention or praise. This kind of man is connected to his purpose and is on a mission to make the world a better place. He is focused on leading a life he loves, full of love and connection. He’s done posturing, pretending, hiding, inflating and measuring. He just walks through this world committed to what he knows is important.  He is willing to be vulnerable, to engage with his feelings, to show his softer side. He is willing to “toughen up” to get the job done, to grow into loving his family and those he leads. He is willing to step into discomfort so that he can grow consistently. He knows that to create the life he loves, he will have to go against the grain, fail, break molds and be fully authentic in embracing who he is and what he wants. This idea of what an alpha male is or isn’t doesn’t concern him.

 

The reality is that we are all called to be better than others. But we are all united, as one species, one planet, and one universe. How we judge ourselves in relationship to others is simply a projection and reflection of who we are. So our deepest longing is to actualize. We do want to dominate, but not other men, women or children. We want to dominate and be better than the version of us from yesterday. We want to evolve and rise above our shadowy or mediocre parts of ourselves. From the deepest place in our souls, we are called to evolve so we can make the world safer, better, more peaceful and more loving for the next generation. This is what your instinct for dominance and power is really about.

 

Here are a few more things that a man, who no longer gives a flying fuck about being an alpha, would probably also be doing.

 

Prioritizing love over money.

Getting in touch with his feminine energy.

Grows in both boldness and being humble.

Practices patience.

Develops a healthy spiritual side.

Educates himself about privilege.

Learns non-violent language.

Develops his capacity for eros and sensuality.

Desires to know about consent (in sex and communication)

Learns about experiencing more pleasure.

Grows comfortable hugging other men.

Practices mindfulness.

Evolves past performative sexuality.

Learns to listen, hear and seek understanding.

Can make fun of himself.

Learns about feminism.

Learns about internalized toxic masculinity

Learns about differences and how he impacts those around him.

Gets in touch with nature.

Respects others no matter their political, religious or lifestyle preference.

Help transfer power to those with less.

Lets go of both internal and external domination logic and move towards liberation for all.

Teaches, mentors and serves others

Embraces that life is long and accepts the challenge of constantly growing.

 

What would you add to this list?

 

The truth is that most of us aren’t taught how to actually be the man we want to be. We are taught to be a “good man” or a “nice guy”. We are taught to “succeed”. It’s time that we let go of any sort of dominance of or comparison to other men.

 

When you are ready, I am here to help coach you through the process.

 

It’s Your Turn!