Most of us, deep down, are afraid we’re not good enough.

This deep-rooted sense of inferiority may stem from childhood or even earlier.

Regardless of where it started, it’s pretty plain to see that you’re not going to be able to rise to your true greatness unless you’re able to root out this festering insecurity and replace it with an impenetrable golden core of self-esteem.

So much of the world encourages you to “front”, to “act as if” to pretend to be something you’re not.

As effective as this may be in the short term, it’s toxic to your integrity in the long term.

I propose that in a world that pays homage to superficial values, authenticity is a revolutionary act.

As you become more and more the man you want to be, you will feel more and more comfortable dropping the mask and confronting the world with the same courage you use to confront yourself.

Doing this is not easy. It requires that you stand in front of the mirror and accept the man you see there, actual and potential, flaws and strengths alike.

It is only when you can do this that you can then gaze unflinchingly into the world’s hard eye and demand your piece of it.

People can tell. They can feel it in your gaze, in your quiet presence. They respond to it. They respect it.

It takes years. It’s worth every second.

Turn your eye onto the areas of your life where you are less-than-honest with yourself. Fix them with your gaze so that when others see them and touch them, you are not surprised, and you cannot be shaken.

This takes inner focus. It takes self-focus, spent not in narcissistic navel-gazing, but the kind of focus that carves out a space for your own innermost person to exist, so that it frees you, little by little, to step through the veil of your appearance and manner into real encounters with others.

This is the process I believe all men changing themselves go through.

At first, they focus on their external behaviors, the new actions they can perform that will produce the desired changes in the world.

Then they begin to realize that those external behaviors ought to flow from internal beliefs, which may run contrary to existing beliefs they’ve held all their lives. As their beliefs become more congruent with their behaviors, they can find the peace that so many people search for.

It takes consistency. Inner peace isn’t something you find on a weekend retreat. It isn’t something you find on the weekend, period.

It’s something you need to find at your desk at work. In the hallway. At the urinal. Under your car’s floor mats. In the mirror. In the shaving cup. In the drinking cup. In your woman’s eyes, and in her arms.

In every waking moment, you need to cultivate yourself with consistency. Burn that ball of your integrity deep into the seat of your soul, the root chakra, a golden ball of immense gravity seated in the throne of your solar plexus. Add a single thread each day, each moment, each time you open your mouth. A lie is a wisp of ash. A truth is a golden thread. Wind each golden threads around the tight core and over the years you will add a layer, and then another, and they will compress down upon each other to create a denser, stronger, unshakable center of infinite gravity.

It takes courage. It takes the courage of admitting to yourself when you have defeated yourself, when you have lied to yourself, when you have gotten in your own way, foiled yourself.

It takes the courage of admitting your shortcomings and weaknesses. It takes the courage to face yourself every day, unflinching, and tell yourself the truth.

It takes even more courage to tell the world the truth about yourself.

But once you have done that, you are free to tell the world the truth about everything else.

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