How to Become a High Value Man

It's easier than you think

With all the well-documented challenges facing young men today, one implication of that is that a young man who has his act together can set himself apart from the crowd and become the proverbial “high value man.”

Accomplishing this is easier than you think for men without challenges they can’t do anything about, such as being very short.

If you do the following, you’ll probably be in the top 5-10% of men.

1. Get the Christian basics right. Become a serious, practicing Christian. I’ll only highlight two points here: become an active member of a church, and avoid mistreating or sexually taking advantage of women.

2. Reject vice. I already wrote a very popular essay about this. Just say No to porn, pot, gambling, video games, tattoos, profanity, and the like.

Vice may not destroy you, but it’s far more likely to harm than help you.

3. Get healthy and in decent shape. You don’t need to have a six pack. Just get reasonable. Given the availability and plummeting prices of weight loss drugs, there’s not much excuse for not using them if you are significantly overweight and other attempts to lose weight fail.

Even if you aren’t overweight, you need to be eating right. I’m not a nutritionist but some kind of “just eat real food” diet, with a focus on microbiome (intestinal bacteria) health is a good start.

And you need to be working out with some mix of cardio and strength training. I have my preferred way of working out, but as I always say, the best working plan is the one you actually follow. Do what works for you.

4. Improve your style. There are a many web sites and resources out there that will help you get more stylish. I don’t have any natural flair for clothing and style. And nobody is going to call me Mr. GQ. But you can actually learn the basics of style relatively easily.

The X account Well Built Style is a good resource. For traditional tailored clothing, the book Dressing the Man by Alan Flusser is a must read. I previously wrote an essay about this book.

5. Have a mission in life. Have a goal you are working toward, a life you are trying to build. My mission is to help conservative and Christian men - and the things they lead or influence - faithfully flourish in today’s world. Maybe yours is something like wanting to own your own business.

Having a mission is critical if you want to attract a woman to marry. Women want to be with a man who’s going somewhere. If you don’t even know where you want to go, that’s certainly not you.

Your mission also informs the kind of woman you want to be with. You want one who is going to complement your mission, your direction in life. If you don’t have a conscious idea of your mission, then there’s a high likelihood you end up marrying someone who has an incompatible life vision from you.

If you aren’t sure what your mission is yet, at least make sure you have a job and are performing well at it.

6. Get your finances in shape. Build up some savings. Avoid debt. Chip away at your pile if you already have some. Set up your lifestyle so that you have financial margin - more income than outgo. Again, I’m not a finance blogger. There are plenty out there to choose and learn from. Check out the Radical Personal Finance podcast if you don’t know where to start.

That’s it: go to church, avoid vice, get basically healthy and in shape, upgrade your style, have a mission, and mind the store financially.

You don’t have to be in the top 1% on all of those. Just being solid across the board - or at least making progress on them - will put you ahead of almost every other man out there.

It doesn’t take some heroic or extraordinary level of accomplishment to set yourself apart from the crowd in today’s world.

You don’t need to be a baller or a millionaire or very good looking - though of course it’s nice if you are.

You don’t have to have an IQ of 130+ - although that helps.

You don’t have to have gone to an elite college - although it’s great if you did.

Just executing on the basics across the board is enough to put you into the top 10% or so versus today’s competition. That’s especially true the younger you are.

This doesn’t mean, by the way, that if you become a high value man, woman are automatically going to start wanting to date and marry you. In this world, it just doesn’t work that way.

Finding someone to marry, and then staying married takes a lot of focus and intentionality no matter what. It also requires that you have an understanding of how intersexual dynamics and things like online dating work in today’s world. Unfortunately, you aren’t likely to get that information from church or mainstream authorities. But as with health, fitness, and finances, there are a lot of places out there you can learn that from (if you apply some judicious filtering to what they say).

Nevertheless, being a high value man puts you into a position where you are credible as a plausible partner to a quality woman. For those men who are looking for marriage, that’s an important first step.

If you didn’t read it, also check out my post about why it’s never been a better time to be a man in America.