The Alpha Male Paradox

It isn’t really me

I’m not what you would call an alpha male, truth be told I’d struggle to qualify as a beta male.  I will never scare anybody into submission.  I’m your average middle management wimp.

But I have an alpha male hero

My hero is Frank Shamrock.

If you have not heard of him, he is a cage fighter. In the 1990’s:

• Black Belt Magazine called him the “Best Full Contact Fighter”
• The Wrestling Observer named him “Fighter of the Decade”
• Full Contact Fighter Magazine awarded him “Fighter of the Year” three times

A real hard man.

He is not, in truth, the sort of man I’d like my daughter to bring home on a date. I suspect he would offend my middle class sensibilities. Maybe she should find a nice dental student. But there is something about Mr Shamrock that impresses me… his humility.

The training system

Frank Shamrock promotes a system that he calls plus, minus, equal:

Plus

First find somebody who is better than you. Somebody who has more experience than you and that you can learn from — a mentor. There is always somebody out there who knows more than you do. If you think you are the best then you won’t learn anything new.

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants ~ Isaac Newton

Minus

Second, find somebody who is less experienced than you who wants your help. Teach others what you know. It will force you to clarify your own thinking. It is amazing what you can learn from somebody who questions your knowledge.

No one learns as much about a subject as one who is forced to teach it ~ Peter Drucker

Equal

Finally find an equal, somebody that you can spar with and learn alongside. A little competition will work wonders on your motivation.

Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another ~ Proverbs 27:17

You can learn something from everybody

But only if you are willing to…

False ideas about yourself destroy you.  For me, I always stay a student, that’s what martial arts are about and you have to use humility as a tool ~ Frank Shamrock

The alpha male paradox

Alpha males are humble.

True alpha males don’t behave like the caricature, they listen, learn and then act.  The second they start believing their own press and start throwing their weight about they limit themselves and those around them.

All that ego just gets in the way.

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The idea for this post came from this fascinating book

Image by paulmcenany