BECOME THE GUY.

I was always ridiculously ambitious. Partly because that's just who I am, but if I'm being self-aware, probably also because achievement gave me validation.

So I worked my ass off.

By 29, I'd already experienced a lot of shit that other men might not experience until their 40s or 50s. Eventually I got promoted to Managing Director and Partner at the startup I worked for in London.

I remember the founders announcing it and feeling incredibly proud.

For about ten fucking seconds 😂

The next day I woke up and... nothing had changed.

I was still getting onto the Central Line every morning, which in summer is basically Satan's asshole with handrails, going somewhere I increasingly didn't want to be.

I'd get to the office, take a deep breath and put the mask back on. Pretend I gave a fuck about another budget, another spreadsheet full of made-up numbers to keep investors happy, or another conversation about “optimising shareholder value.”

About a year and a half later, I was basically having my midlife crisis at 30.

And this eventually forced me to question something I'd believed for most of my life:

What actually makes a great man?

Because clearly the fucking job title wasn't doing it.

This is where things get confusing because the internet seems to have split masculinity into two camps, and I don't particularly want to join either of them.

You've got the hardcore Red Pill version where apparently the answer to every problem is to make more money, get jacked, dominate everyone around you and never let a woman know that you possess human emotions.

Now, some of that advice isn't completely useless. Men need ambition. Men need standards. A lot of men desperately need a fucking spine.

But taken to the extreme, you become the guy who treats his girlfriend like an employee he's trying to performance-manage.

Then you've got the opposite side of the internet telling men they need to be endlessly vulnerable, hold space, validate everything and become more “emotionally available.”

Again, there's some truth in there.

Until you become such a soft-ass doormat that you've spent three years “holding space for her emotions,” yet completely collapse when she takes six hours to reply to your fucking text.

I don't want either version.

I don't think masculinity means becoming emotionally dead, and I definitely don't think the answer is feminising men until they're terrified of having an opinion because it might make someone uncomfortable.

A great man needs range.

And funnily enough, your relationships with women will expose exactly how much range you actually have.

Don't misunderstand me here because I fucking love money 😂

Go build an amazing career. Build the company. Buy the Porsche. Get yourself into ridiculous shape. I have zero interest in teaching men to abandon ambition and go live in a fucking forest.

But I've now coached enough successful men to know that external success can hide some pretty massive holes in your personality.

I've worked with executives making well into six figures who have the nice apartment, impressive title and expensive watch, and from the outside they look like they've won.

Then they meet a woman they really fucking like.

Suddenly this guy who can negotiate a six-figure deal without blinking is staring at WhatsApp because she hasn't replied since lunch.

“Do you think she's losing interest?”

“Should I text her?”

“Was my message too needy?”

Bro 😂

The money didn't disappear.

His personality did.

And that's why I became much more interested in this question:

What are the actual personality traits that make a man attractive, respected and fucking good at relationships?

That's eventually what became the Hercules model.

Imagine there are four different stations available to you.

You already have access to all four, but you've probably spent most of your life listening to one or two because those are the parts of your personality that feel safest.

The problem is that life doesn't give a fuck which station you're most comfortable with.

Sometimes your woman needs you to make a decision. Sometimes she wants you to stop taking everything so seriously and flirt with her. Sometimes something is genuinely wrong and she needs to feel understood. And sometimes the smartest thing you can do is shut the fuck up for five minutes and actually observe what's happening.

So becoming Hercules isn't about discovering which archetype you are and then putting it in your Instagram bio.

It's learning to change the station.

Let me show you what I mean.