This is an extremely difficult subject for me to be honest about, which means this is probably going to be a good article.
At the time of this writing, I'm a 55-year-old man who stands 5'11", weighs somewhere between 220-230lbs, and has both formal combat training and significant street fighting experience.
I'm an ethnically Jewish Italian American from Philly, my childhood was violent, my life lessons were brutal, and while I somehow survived, I definitely have my scars.
When you look at me, the very last thing you would think is "easy target". Like many guys who were abused as kids, I have admittedly morphed into almost a caricature of machismo, and the fact that my business is called "Man-UP! Life Coaching" is just a cherry on top. Everything about me broadcasts that I am a serious man who is not to be fucked with.
And yet as we all know, that can also telegraph insecurity. We've all heard people say that a guy is "compensating" because he drives a Hummer, rides a Harley, or lifts heavy 4-5 days a week.
I think about the kid I was, and in many ways he is nothing like this guy that I am now. When I look at myself, I see a bald guy with broad shoulders and biggish arms in a tight black tee-shirt that could easily play an East Coast gangster in an action movie.
But as a kid I was skinny, pigeon-toed, had long, wavy brown hair, big doe eyes, a very sweet (but kinda smart-alecky) face. I drew pictures, I climbed trees, I skipped rocks, I rode bikes, I lit things on fire with my mom's big sewing magnifying glass, and I was something of a mischievous little scientist always cooking up trouble.
I honestly didn't want to fight anyone, ever. It seemed stupid, since you were both going to get hurt, and there was no part of me that was interested in either being hurt or hurting another person.
But man, somewhere along the way, that changed.
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I notice that whenever I tell my life story, I always tell it in a way that makes my dad the reason I became an angry, violent young man. And look, my dad earns all of the criticism I've ever meted out in my adult years. He was an angry, competitive guy with a huge chip on his shoulder, and he was responsible for some pretty heinous stuff that isn't fun to talk about.
But also, I was showing signs of violence well before I went to live with my dad. We were together until I was nearly 3 years old, when my mom ran away with me to save us both from further abuse. Then I lived with her, where I fell prey to her violence, and the violence of others, and somewhere along the way I became feral.
I was a smart kid, I could always pass tests (though I wasn't great at doing homework), and most of my school problems were social. It was a classic case of a kid getting picked on and isolated who decides enough is enough. And what do you know.... I started becoming a bully.
I wanted power over people. I wanted power over situations. I started being mean to animals, and killing things just because I could. And look, I know that sounds like the origin story for a criminal sociopath, and in a way it is. I started drinking in my early teens. I got into fights that I started by being sloppy drunk and belligerent. And when guys tried to dial me in, I raged out and attacked them with any weapon I could find. Knives, bottles, eventually guns.... I was a dangerous dude with daddy issues. Again, classic.
And this led me to jail. While I have never been convicted of a crime, I have had some really close calls, and spent significant time in places like Rikers Island in New York, Orleans Parish Prison in New Orleans, and the Vista Detention Center in California. And every time it was for the exact same thing: I blew my top and attacked someone I perceived as a threat.
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So look man, let's just say it isn't an accident that I coach men. I've been apologizing for my high testosterone and my toxic masculinity long before that was a thing. And while I have always wanted to be able to say that I'm this really chill guy who doesn't sweat the small stuff, the truth is that I am an extremely intense guy who is hyperaware of everything all the time, and staying grounded and in a flow state without either exploding or imploding is a life's work.
And in my coaching culture, we call this work self-mastery.
I am using the term self here in a very specific way, which is consistent with most belief systems if you back up far enough to avoid getting tangled in the details. Basically the idea is that there's a little "you", which we are calling the self, and a big "You", which we are collectively a part of. Not just humanity, but the actual energy of all life itself—whether you call that chi, great spirit, the force, the holy spirit, or any other name.
The game we are always playing is controlling the self, and letting the very soul of life carry us through this waking dream, and all of its bizarre scenes, without panicking, without going into existential crisis, and without having a ginormous temper tantrum and wreaking havoc on anything and everything around us.
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The tools we use in this culture are the ones I've historically used in my own life, learned both through trial-and-error as well as from various sources ranging from books to incidental mentors put in my life to help guide me along my journey.
- Meditation. Dude, this one is the most challenging, and yet the most critical. I really don't even want to get into it, because talking about it isn't the same as doing it. You just sit down and shut up for as long as you can, and the longer the better. Everything you need to know is there on the altar of stillness and silence.
- Positive self-talk. Self-help books always talk about the value of self-affirmation. In our coaching culture, we choose to call them "validations" rather than "affirmations", because as guys it's easier to distinguish between validation ("good boy!") and judgment ("bad dog!"). The rule here is keep it simple, and keep it frequent; more is more. Literally say: "You are happy, you are healthy, you are wealthy, you are strong" over and over like you're getting paid for it.
- Exercise. Man, I don't care what you do for exercise. Some guys lift heavy, some guys do kettlebells, some guys do calisthenics, some guys run or even walk. Just get after it, as often as you can. Again, more is more. Push your body to failure.
- Diet. It's crazy how we all know the importance of nutrition, but then we eat like shit anyway. It's like when you go to a hospital and see trained medical professionals eating McDonald's. Like come on, man.... if anyone should know better it's you. That's just not good fuel. Eating food that "remembers where it came from" is a pretty good rule of thumb, and after that managing caloric intake.
- Work. Although this isn't literally a part of our core curriculum in any formal way, all of the guys I coach have jobs or side hustles. There is no one who literally has no work to do. And losing yourself in your work is a meditation in and of itself, that hopefully trains you to manage your energy rather than send it.
Again, we all know this stuff, we just have to do it. And staying disciplined can be difficult. When we fail, we judge ourselves, we get upset with ourselves, and before you know it the rage starts to build up again. We have to feel it, accept it, let it go, and if we fuck up..... well..... brush your shoulders off and try again.
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It's going to happen. Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. At some point, you're going to feel it welling up inside of you like a storm. Rage, hate, anger, violence. I do not care who you are, man, you are not impervious to the temptation to lose your shit. There's a reason "ragebait" was the Oxford dictionary's word of the year in 2025. We are living in stressful times, and the urge to either send it or rage quit is more popular than ever.
If it happens, deal with the collateral damage and start over. Use your tools. And remind yourself in any situation that's giving you anxiety: "I choose peace over this."
Take it from me. I'm not just the founder of Man-UP! Life Coaching, I'm also a client.
