The 3 P's Of Being A Man, Getting Tough and Doing Hard Things

SPEAKER_1 (0:03)

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Ben Greenfield (0:38)

Hey, folks, it's Ben Greenfield, and there are a few websites that I subscribe to and read religiously. And there's also just a few books that I will actually read more than once. Now, one of the websites that I actually read religiously is called Art of Manliness at artofmanliness.com. And one of the books that I've read, not once, not twice, but actually three times in the past couple of months is called Semper Virilis, which is actually the full title of the book is A Roadmap to Manhood in the 21st Century.

The guy who wrote this book and also the guy who founded and runs the website, Art of Manliness, is my guest today. His name is Brett McKay, and today he's gonna give us a quick primer on the art of being a man, getting tough and doing hard things. So Brett, thanks for coming on the call, man.

Brett McKay (1:42)

Hey, thanks for having me.

Ben Greenfield (1:44)

And for you ladies listening in, my apologies, I promise at some point I'll get a podcast specifically for you, but in the meantime, just forward this to the dude in your life, and I'm sure he's gonna benefit quite a bit from it.

So Brett, I think probably just because we're a little bit limited on time today, it'd be fun to just jump right into this book and some of the biggest lessons you can get from it. And by the way, the book, you can find it for free at Art of Manliness if you're listening in. I'll link to it in the show notes for this at bengreenfieldfitness.com. But Brett, you start in by talking about this guy, Theodore Roosevelt, and I think most of us living here in America have heard of Theodore Roosevelt. But why do you pick Theodore Roosevelt as an example of a really good man?

Brett McKay (2:34)

Yeah, so I think it helps to understand the backdrop of Simper Virilis. And technically, it's a blog post, but it's like the length of a small e-book. And I'm hoping to one day flesh it out into an actual book.

Ben Greenfield (2:47)

You know, I actually call it a book just because I use the Send to Kindle app in my browser, and I've got it on my Kindle, so I think of it as my book.

Brett McKay (2:55)

It's a long thing. It's a long read. But the idea of Simper Virilis came from a series of posts we did about the history or the development, what it means to be a man across cultures and across the world. And come to find out, anthropologists, primatologists, biologists have found, evolutionary psychologists have found there's sort of these similarities across cultures.

And those three things are, to be a man in most cultures means you have to provide, you have to protect, and you have to procreate.

Ben Greenfield (3:27)

Just the three P's, right?

Brett McKay (3:29)

The three P's of manhood.

And what we found was, and I was thinking about this and writing about it and doing research about it, today in our modern world with technology, with these conveniences that we have, there are fewer opportunities for men to exercise sort of these primordial traits or these primordial pillars of manhood, which is provide, protect, and procreate.

So, take an example like the procreate, the pillar of, or not the pillar of procreation, the pillar of protection, right? Across cultures, across the world, across time, men are generally the ones who are responsible for protecting the tribe, right? Whether that's a small tribe and you have sort of the small military unit or large nation states, it's primarily men who fill that role. And it's because men are generally, because thanks to biology revolution, are stronger than women. They're just, they're more well suited to it. They're more willing. They have a propensity for risk taking. They have a propensity for being concerned about status and whether you're strong and whatever. So men have this desire to protect and fight and be competitive and take risks. Generally speaking, everyone is, oh, that's not me. Well, when you speak about gender, you often have to speak about generalities. I know a lot of people don't like that, but it is what it is.

But in the 21st century, most men, they'll never have the opportunity to take part in that pillar.