Imagine your reputation like a garden. No one would grow just one type plant and consider themselves an accomplished gardener. Can you imagine if one of your friends said to you:
“I think I need to start growing my own food, so I’m going start growing tomatoes.”
You’d say something like “Okay, what else are you going to grow?”
“Nothing, just tomatoes.”
“You want to grow your own food, but just tomatoes?”
“Yes.”
“So you don’t want to grow your own food. You just want grow tomatoes.”
It seems crazy doesn’t it? There’s nothing wrong with growing tomatoes, but if you just grow tomatoes, you aren’t really growing your own food nor are you an accomplished gardener.
Likewise men who only focus on one, or even several, aspects of life aren’t cultivating a reputation worth having. Working out is good. But if you only focus on your physical strength, and don’t strengthen your mind, you are an incomplete man. If you have multiple doctorates but don’t have the social skills necessary to form meaningful bonds with friends and family, you are not complete.
Don’t misconstrue this to mean that I think you should do everything. You can’t and you shouldn’t even try. But you should possess all the traits necessary to be a good man and to be good at being a man. Strength, honor, thumos, intellect, honesty, physical endurance, grit, et cetera. Possess all these traits and more. Constantly be on the lookout for weaknesses, chinks in your reputation, and then eliminate them.
Catch you next time, gents.
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