The James Altucher Show

Ep. 120 - Brett McKay: The Art of Manliness

Episode Summary

Brett McKay is the founder of The Art of Manliness, a website dedicated to delivering inspiring, actionable, and life changing advice to both men and women. A lot of times men just need a little more help being organized and getting their lives...

Episode Notes

Brett McKay is the founder of The Art of Manliness, a website dedicated to delivering inspiring, actionable, and life changing advice to both men and women. A lot of times men just need a little more help being organized and getting their lives together than women do. As James says, "Women just grow up faster."

Brett's wife Kate is also his business partner. While there are many advantages to having your spouse involved with your business, it also introduces the difficulty of separating work time from personal time. Even during dedicated work time it sometimes is hard to clearly define roles and responsibilities in the business. This is a theme that spans most business relationships, but generally your business partner isn't also the person you share a bed with each night.

Brett keeps it simple by living by the mantra that both you and your spouse should "Seek to Serve Each Other." This doesn't need to be an equal relationship all the time. Go out of your way to be generous and giving to your loved ones.

The Art of Manliness is currently publishing blog posts, podcast episodes, and videos about how to live well as a man in the modern world. As opposed to many of the existing Men's publications, The Art of Manliness is geared toward slightly older, professional men, and isn't focused on how to have six-pack abs or toe-curling sex for 5 hours every day. There are professional tips, parenting tips for men, and what some may call "Old Fashioned" advice that men can take to live a better, more fulfilling life.

The site is currently experiencing revenues in the high six-figures-per-year range, and has been publishing consistently this entire time. As James has recounted before, it often takes 4 or 5 years to change your life, "Choose Yourself," and create the reality that you want.

Brett gives advice on how to grow a site like he has with today's social media and sharing tools. He is a big advocate of "Guest Posting" on other blogs as a way to increase your reach online. The age of the solo blog is slowly going away. Today, sites like The Art of Manliness, with guest contributors, allow for a diverse set of voices and perspectives that one single person could never give. To make it easier on the site you're looking to guest post on, do most of the work for them. This includes image formatting, sizing, tagging, and including a scope of what type of post you would like to submit for that site.

Digging into some of the more popular posts on the site, James and Brett discuss a few key topics:

• •Regarding Minimalism, Brett and James discuss how trying to be minimalist often leads to an obsession with the things you do have. Instead of just focusing on having things, even if it's fewer things, both advocate spending your time and money on experiences. This has been scientifically proven to increase happiness and is a great way to parent, as well as live your life if you don't have children.

• •The concept of Antifragility applies not only to the financial markets, as originally described by Nasim Taleb, but also to many aspects of everyday life. Health, fitness, engineering, women's health and vitality, and even society in general all experience aspects of Antifragility. We can all do things today to increase our Antifragility and be less susceptible to the trials of life. The redundancies in our lives can also increase Antifragility.

• •The Art of Manliness closely mirrors a lot of the topics that James has written about time and time again, including Integrity. Until very recently the term Manliness meant not only physical strength but to be a man of virtue. This theme holds true through all of Brett's website, and is helping to bring back a better way of life for men.

• •Bringing back some of the older-style manly characteristics includes being decisive and leading in relationships. Gender roles can often get complicated by stereotypes and social norms but the fact remains that in most relationships there needs to be a leader. And many times modern women are looking for the men in their lives to be that leader.

In parting, the one piece of information that Brett thinks that women need to know about men is that most men are very attuned to status. How people perceive men is something very important to many, regardless of what they may say.

You can reach out to Brett directly on Twitter @ArtOfManliness or check out TheArtOfManliness.com for much more of Brett's writings.

Resources:

Brett McKay: The Art of Manliness Book Collection

Nassim Taleb: Antifragile

Scott Eyman: John Wayne The Life and Legend

Regards,

James

P.S. Recently, James caught up with New York Times best-selling business author (and former guest) Mark Ford. The two had dinner and batted around ideas. One idea in particular, had James excited. He calls it "the fastest legal way to make a fortune in America." It has nothing to do with stocks or conventional investments. Click here for James' full write-up.