Sometimes you need to go nuclear.

The status quo ain’t working. Maybe it never did. Either way, it needs drastic change.

Not a reimagining. Not some polishing. A full wipe of the board with overwhelming force.

Sometimes you need to go surgical.

One thing in your life, business or relationship isn’t working. It needs excising, fast, while leaving everything else intact.

Sometimes, you need both.

Do you have a habit or flaw that keeps popping up? It can be like a temper, a weakness for cigarettes or a struggle with procrastination.

It can be something small that impacts you in big ways.

You’ve probably tried many things, including just trying to tough it out. Raw willpower is always the best strategy, when it works.

When it doesn’t?

That’s when an outside hand can help.

Not a book or a course – as much as I love those, real change comes from explaining the nuances of your situation to someone who knows what to do with that.

What you really need is some coaching:

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Apparently, people are still talking about the Barbie movie and what it means for the culture.

That means we’re seeing higher than average criticisms of the dreaded alpha male.

Dun dun dunnnn.

All the criticisms I keep seeing are the same, although that’s probably more to do with Facebarf algorithms than anything. There’s usually a line like:

The alpha version of something is usually the buggiest and least fit for public consumption lol lol lol

Yeah, that’s funny. In fact, it’s hysterical – by which I mean it suffers from insanity caused by a quivering uterus, since all words only have one meaning.

I’m critical of communism, but it’s never occurred to me to make fun of its name. I’m too busy making fun of all the ways that it’s worse than capitalism at solving the problems created by capitalism. It’s a woeful political theory that’s terrible at the thing it’s optimised for, but still people seem to like communism.

Anyway, hardly relevant. You’ve seen this criticism of the alpha male before:

The entire theory is based off a mistake made by a flawed study of wolf populations. The author of the original studies even regretted it and went on to rally against people misusing his research. All the research was done on wolves in zoos, who socialise differently in the wild. Wild wolves form packs around family lines.

So much to unpack here.

Are you saying humans don’t live in zoos?

How often do you get together with your parents and siblings, then go out into the world to solve a problem together? Maybe a few times a year? Instead, you spend most of your time randomly clumped with strangers, as we would if we’re in exhibits?

The zoo model isn’t a good fit for how we live, but it’s damn closer than pretending we live in nomadic hunter-gatherer clans.

Either way, it doesn’t matter. When people talk about alpha males, they’re not referencing that research. Of course they’re not. The idea of wanting to be a king, an adonis, a champion, a leader – that all predates the wolf studies by thousands of years. That’s what people are talking about.

All the research contributed was the name, not the concept.

If you’re a man who desires to better himself, that’s great! Society should celebrate that. Feminists should be encouraging that more than anyone, since it fixes what they call the biggest problem.

“But alpha males aren’t better! They’re insecure and needy!”

Ah.

You’re talking about guys with loud cars, short sleeves, bulging muscles and wafer-thin confidence, right? The ones who always have to be the centre of attention, always in charge and always getting what they want whether they earned it or not?

Those are the guys who ask a girl out, get shot down and then call her an ugly lesbian, right?

Uh…

Question:

Why are you calling insecure losers alpha males?

I’m all across the personal development space and plenty of my male friends are lions. None of the guys I follow, know or admire are fragile posers. They have genuine strength – sometimes it’s quiet, sometimes it blazes, but it’s always there. That’s why I like them.

The term alpha male doesn’t resonate with me. That’s not how I’d ever describe myself. I’d never judge anyone who leans into that frame, though. Go for it, lion! If you want to buy the fast car and get huge at the gym, that’s awesome. If you want to embrace the more traditional, overt and obviously masculine ideal, then all the power to you.

And if not – if you’d rather embrace being kind, or stylish, or compassionate – well, there’s more than one way to be a great man.

Anyway, I’m not telling you anything new here. If you’re a man, you already get it.

But I’m letting you know where I stand.

I reject the belief that all men are bad, that the only good man is a feminine one and that self-improvement is toxic.

Forget all that. Anyone who tells you any of that is, at best, deeply confused and traumatised. They certainly don’t have any advice for you.

There sure is a lot of bad advice out there. “To be a REAL man, you have to cry, write sonnets and submit to everyone in your life”. “To be a REAL man, here – enjoy these steroids”.

Nah. As I said, there’s more than one way to be a great man, let alone a real one.

Besides, what good is advice? The internet is lousy with advice. Twenty years ago, the internet had more advice on this than you could read in a lifetime. There were even more books on it, too.

What you need is coaching.

Advice is information.

Coaching is action, results and progress.

Cut the glut of digital data and skip right to something you need:

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Thresholds in life are funny things. 

You can know what you want – a new job, a new relationship, a new start. 

You can move right up to the precipice of taking action. 

And then… 

… you freeze. 

You hesitate. 

Some doubt niggles at you, enough to get you to do the sensible thing. You know, the safe thing. So you step back from the threshold of your biggest change, promising you’ll return to it later. 

Mm hmm. 

As if that’s not one of the most dangerous words around. Later. 

Laters are a finite resource. You can only use so many of them before you run out. 

So, what’s the advice here? Go after every idea you have with full gusto? 

I mean, maybe. That works out for some folks. But then again, maybe not. Doubts are reasonable. They’re there to get you to doublecheck your thinking before any big change. 

You can probably find an opportunity with the same benefits but less risk. 

Or you can make some simple changes to the plan to make it even better. 

Then again, maybe you don’t need to change anything but your attitude. All you need is to push yourself.  

Overcome the doubt and you cross the threshold. 

I love this sort of thing. I love it when folks dream bigger than their circumstances and go after what they want. It’s been an interest of mine for a long time, something I’ve studied, practiced and, yes, applied with myself. 

Yeah, I can help you go after what you really want. Partly for your benefit, partly because I love doing that. 

If you can look past my selfish motivations, you might want to sign up for some coaching here: 

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Most folks don’t hunt these days, but we’re still hunters.

Hunting is an action. Hunter is a thing. You only have to be capable of hunting to be considered a hunter, the same way a computer is still a computer when it’s switched off.

Even if you find the idea of hunting unsettling, even if you ride a wheelchair and wheeze with every breath, you’re still a hunter. Those old instincts are still there.

That just raises the question:

What kind of hunters are humans?

Are we ambush predators, lying in wait for our naïve prey to stumble into our traps?

Are we pack hunters, coordinating to box our prey in and take them done?

Maybe we’re persistence hunters, chasing our prey until they’d rather be a meal than keep running?

“The last one! It’s the last one!”

Ah, I see you’re a student of anthropology. You probably know about how our ancestors would chase gazelles over the planes, waterskins on their belts and songs in their hearts.

But before you rush into an answer, consider:

Humans are the ultimate predator. Best we can tell, there’s never been anything like us before. There doesn’t seem to be anything like us now. We’re kings and queens of the ecosystem.

Why?

Is it because we can coordinate and plan with others? Sure, but so can wolves. When a wolf can build an oil rig, write a sonnet and sail the seas, I’ll pay attention. Until then, there’s clearly a difference between us.

What about our technology? That’s overrated. Okay, sure, now our technology is godlike, elevating us above any predator nature has ever seen. But for most of our evolutionary history, we weren’t inventing new things. We got by for hundreds of millennia using only chiselled rocks, pointy sticks and waterskins.

The answer is probably in our ridiculous intelligence. It has to be. We’re unimpressive by every other standard.

And a key part of that is our flexibility.

What sort of predator are we? Whatever will get the job done. We’ll chase a gazelle to the horizon if we have to. Or we’ll bait some hooks and toss them into the sea. Or we’ll surround a bison and leave it nowhere to run as we whittle it down.

The most dangerous predator on the planet is dangerous because we’re flexible.

We’re adaptable.

We have no hunting strategy – we have hunting strategies. Our real strategy is to pick the strategy that works.

Apparently, the African wild dog is one of the world’s most successful predators. Over 80% of hunts result in a kill. They’re even flexible about it, combining pack tactics with persistence hunting.

Even so, we’re much more flexible than they are – and guess which species is on the endangered list now? Hint: it’s not us.

I love nature, so that breaks my heart – but I’m not about to turn away from the lesson here.

Adaptability is king.

It’s the winning strategy, allowing you to swap out other strategies on the fly. It keeps you nimble, unpredictable and resourceful.

And if you’re struggling, I bet this is why. Most problems boil down to inflexibility. You keep doing what you’ve always done, but you’re no longer winning.

Maybe you’re more attached to your strategy than the results it gives you. It’s easy to get grateful, even sentimental, over an approach which has brought you so much happiness, richness or success in your life.

Perhaps it feels disloyal on some level to add another option to your suite of strategies.

I’m sure your old, stale behaviours appreciate it.

If you’re happy to rest in the rut you’ve created, then you’ll be happy as you are. There’s no need for coaching for someone like that.

Especially not my Broken Laser approach, specifically designed to get you unstuck and flexible again.

That’s up to you whether you claim a coaching session with me or not:

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You don’t need to be Sherlock to know I’m fond of history – especially Alexander the Great.

Hell, I named my business after him. Indirectly, at least. Antipater was the man who ran the Macedonian empire while Alex was off invading Persia.

Alexander’s achievements were more impressive, but they were impossible without someone there to keep things smooth in the background.

Which is a nice analogy for coaching…

There’s a lot to learn from the stories we have of this campaign. I mean, half of LinkedIn is people saying move quickly and treat your people exceptionally, which were two key factors to Alexander’s success.

But few business gurus today could match the brilliance of the speech Alexander gave at Opis. After ten years of campaigning, he stared down a hoard of his own mutinous soldiers. I can’t imagine anything more intimidating. Never mind that these men have proven themselves as hardy, resilient and violent, but these are the troops he fought alongside.

Their job and duty was to protect him, like they had since the invasion began. I’ve never conquered the largest land empire of my day as part of a scrappy underdog force, but I imagine it builds a bond of trust like nothing else.

For all that to flip… The sense of betrayal at their mutiny would probably outweigh the sense of danger.

Anyway, Alexander then gave an amazing speech – one that made them down weapons and come pleading to his tent, hats in hand and knees on ground as they begged his forgiveness.

I’ve heard this speech narrated. I’ve read various translations of it. If I were a more linguistic sort, I’d have learned ancient Greek just so I could read Arrian’s account of it in Anabasis of Alexander in the original ink.

The point is, it’s an impressive feat of psychology and influence. It must have taken significant insults – perceived or otherwise – to make these men turn on their king. The same king who had given them untold wealth, power and glory, while treating them as equals.

To undo all that hurt, anger and frustration – to turn it around so thoroughly that the soldiers were ashamed of their behaviour – is incredible.

Now, it’d be arrogant to say I know how he did it.

So here it goes:

I know how he did it.

Or, rather, I know a lot of what made this speech special and how to use it.

And, if you’re lucky, I’ll use the Opis Framework on you.

I don’t know if you’re the sort of person who wants to get that fired up – to feel as though you stand in the presence of a mighty warrior-king who reached into your soul and burned away your weaknesses. That feeling is hard to come by.

“Isn’t that manipulative?”

Caring is manipulative. Yeah, Alexander gave the speech to save his life, campaign and legacy. But he also saved his troops from themselves. If they’d gone through with the mutiny, they would have lived in shame. History would remember them as unparalleled ingrates who threw a tantrum over petty concerns. As for their wealth and power… well, we don’t have to guess as to what would happen if Alex died young.

His speech saved them as much as it saved him.

And that’s what coaching is all about.

It’s about saving you from yourself.

That’s only a problem if you care more about protecting your ego more than kicking arse.

And I receive coaching myself at least weekly, if not more often. It’s how I was able to come up with the Opis Framework – and have the confidence to use it.

If you’d like the unparalleled confidence of a solider under Alexander the Great, then let’s talk:

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I recently did a personality profiling quiz as part of an opportunity. Some potential clients wanted to see if and how I could fit in with their organisation.

Boy, oh boy, I said to myself.

I knew it was going to be terrible. It always is.

At least this was different than the usual tripe. For this, I was given a few dozen sets of questions. Each set had four statements – of those four, I had to mark which one was most like me and which was least like me.

And I rolled my eyes so hard that I gained literal insights into the inner workings of my brain.

The first problem is there’s only so much an online quiz can tell you. The best ones I’ve seen are decent. This setup definitely fell short of that.

As I selected which statement of a group of four best captures my uniqueness, I realised a second problem:

You know the type of things quizzes always ask you to rate.

I’m a team player.

I’m resilient, even though I need downtime for self-care.

People don’t realise how interesting I am.

These are Barnum statements – statements that sound specific to you but apply to almost everyone. This is how astrology works, same with a lot of cold reading.

That makes these questions useless, since everyone can think of times where they’ve lived up to each statement.

So I took a deep breath and kept going, my brain aching as I tried to contort myself into choosing the best options.

Which brings me to a third problem. Often, one of the four statements would be something negative, while the others were positive. Even though I tried to be honest, I found myself writing those unflattering options off. Of course I’m never unreasonably stubborn. I defend my ideas, sure, but I’m perfectly reasonable about it.

The fourth issue is it’s incapable of nuance. Sometimes all four of the statements greatly described me. Sometimes, none of them did. Either way, I had to choose one that matched me and one that didn’t.

As for the fifth problem…

… who cares? Really, you get a nice report at the end, but so what? The only value in it is going through the report and identifying where it’s wrong.

Actually, scratch that – you can’t be trusted with your own report. You need someone who knows you well and isn’t afraid of offending you.

With someone like that, you can skip this voodoo. What are my strengths and weaknesses? is an infinitely better question than You are a people person – do you strongly disagree with that, disagree with that, neither agree nor disagree with that, agree with that or strongly agree with that?

Holding my nose and swallowing my pride, I filled in the last of the quiz and hit submit.

It said I’d receive a report by email in a few moments.

I didn’t.

So I emailed their contact address and explained what happened.

No response.

Oh, well.

Remember how I mentioned it’s better to have a friend who’s willing to be objective?

Even better than that is a coach. Especially one with a better personality profiling system than lukewarm garbage like you find online, not as if that’s hard. My system uses your body language, your choice patterns and things you don’t know you’re telling me.

I can then tell you things about yourself few others know. Some of it might be stuff that you don’t even realise you do.

And it’ll be a hell of a lot more specific than the bland pap you get in horoscopes. No, these readings will be true for you but a bad match for most folks around.

Even better?

I can compare that to your goals – tell you your greatest strengths, biggest risks and what you should focus on learning.

Anything short of that is a waste of your time.

And I ain’t big on waste.

So if you’d like to know what comes naturally to you and how that’ll help you succeed, grab a coaching slot at the link below:

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