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Growing up can be a hazardous journey. One minute, you’re a carefree kid. The next, you’re juggling exams, screens, relationship dramas, weird emotions, and the reality of entering the adult world.
That's where LADULT comes in.
This isn't just another book - it's a survival guide for the wild ride from boy to man. Packed with insight, science, stories, and straight-up advice, it covers the stuff they don't teach you in school. You'll learn how to handle pressure, boost confidence, bounce back from setbacks, and build the kind of mindset that keeps you strong - no matter what life throws at you.
LADULT will help teenagers:
✔ Build great habits
✔ Grow in confidence
✔ Spend less time glued to screens
✔ Upgrade their relationships
✔ Strengthen their resilience
✔ Fulfil their potential
✔ Future-proof their life
LADULT doesn't shy away from the big stuff. It tackles screen time, testosterone, porn, neurodiversity, and toxic masculinity head-on. No fluff. No filters. Just real talk, with a good dose of humour.
Buckle up. This is your route map through adolescence towards becoming the adult you want to be.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
About the Authors
Pre-read Checklist
Chapter 1: A MAN DEFINED
Pit stop
Wakey-wakey
What’s your MAN-ifesto?
Beware of Dutch disease
How to improve your likeability
How to be cool
Caterpillar soup
Chapter 2: ALL ABOARD THE STRUGGLE BUS
The change-quake era
Ctrl-alt-delete
Zoochosis
Chapter 3: TEENAGE BOY USER MANUAL
It's just a phase
Main character syndrome
It's a hormone thing
Sleep
A brainy SOS
Chapter 4: LIFE MAXXING
The paradox of choice
The change agent
Future 1
Future 2
Life Maxx-Matrix
Chapter 5: TERMINALLY ONLINE
Digi-decline
The great re-wiring
Eyeballs for sale
The switch-cost effect
The virtual you
Dig yourself a media moat
Breaking up with your smartphone
Chapter 6: REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY
Dead calm
Clinically happy
Eye rolling your way to happiness
Your Get-Out-of-Jail-FREE card
16/10/6: Pass it on …
The Jonah complex
Chapter 7: BE A NICE MAMMAL
The hierarchy of human kind
Level 1: Be kind to yourself
Level 2: Be kind to your future self (right now)
Level 3: Random acts of kindness
Level 4: Be kind to things
Level 5: Be kind to the unkind
Paws for thought
Notes
Chapter 8: WELCOME TO THE PLEASURE DOME
I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with ‘p’
Note
Chapter 9: LADS GET SAD TOO
#ToughestGeezer
Sisu
Think like a zebra
Beyond diagnosis
Snow globe thinking
Your script
NOW o'clock
The truth fairy
Chapter 10: 101 SALVATIONS
Chapter 11: LEVEL UP
Marginal gains
WOOP
Action not distraction
The ef-word
Quit trying
Do you want results or excuses?
How to multiply your earnings
Chapter 12: TOWARDS A NEW DEFINITION OF MASCULINITY
Snap, crackle and pop
The caped crusader
Confidence
Attitude
Presence
Enthusiasm
References
Index
End User License Agreement
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
About the Authors
Pre-read Checklist
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
References
Index
End User License Agreement
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DR. ANDY COPE & OLIVER COPE
This edition first published 2026
© 2026 by Andy Cope and Ollie Cope
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is available at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
The right of Andy Copy and Ollie Cope to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with law.
Registered OfficesJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USAJohn Wiley & Sons Ltd, New Era House, 8 Oldlands Way, Bognor Regis, West Sussex, PO22 9NQ, UK
For details of our global editorial offices, customer services, and more information about Wiley products visit us at www.wiley.com.
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Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some content that appears in standard print versions of this book may not be available in other formats.
Trademarks: Wiley and the Wiley logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty
While the publisher and the authors have used their best efforts in preparing this work, including a review of the content of the work, neither the publisher nor the authors make any representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives, written sales materials or promotional statements for this work. The fact that an organization, website, or product is referred to in this work as a citation and/or potential source of further information does not mean that the publisher and authors endorse the information or services the organization, website, or product may provide or recommendations it may make. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a specialist where appropriate. Further, readers should be aware that websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read. Neither the publisher nor authors shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is Available:
ISBN 9781907326073 (Paperback)ISBN 9781907326097 (ePDF)ISBN 9781907326080 (ePub)
Cover Design and Image: Courtesy of Amy Bradley
Yes, it’s a book for boys and young men, but we’d like to dedicate it to the important females in our lives.
We’re shaped and completed by you.
With love and thanks.
It’s highly unusual to have a father and son writing team so we’d better explain.
Dr Andy Cope is the proper grown-up one. He runs a training company and is lucky to work with some big name companies including Microsoft, Cadbury's, UEFA, SKY, Three and Astra Zeneca. He squeezes a book-writing career in among all that. Andy's writing journey started with children's fiction (his Spy Dog series has sold a million copies across the world) before doing a career U-turn.
His change of direction came as a result of gaining a PhD in positive psychology and becoming the UK's first ever ‘Dr of Happiness’. In a nutshell, his job is to seek out happy people, study them, work out why they feel so amazing and share the ideas with a wider audience.
Andy pops up on radio, TV and podcasts. His aim is to change the emphasis from what’s wrong with you to what’s right with you. This book is special because, way back, he used to be a boy, then a young man, and is now a middle-aged man. Experience matters.
Ollie Cope is busy juggling work and studying. Ollie is almost a doctor. He is currently completing a university thesis that examines the link between social media and attention spans and when he qualifies, he’ll be a ‘Dr of Social Media’.
This is Ollie's first ever book. He brings the massive advantage of still being a young man and therefore in touch with how modern teenagers think and behave.
Combined, we bring youth and wisdom, light and dark, poker-faced and fun. We are seriously excited to have you on board.
Happy reading!
Andy & [email protected]@artofbrilliance.co.uk
For the best experience we recommend LADULT is read old school, a chapter a night, preferably in bed. Failing that, your favourite chair. If neither are available, the toilet is quiet, comfy and (hopefully) undisturbed.
Before your turn the page please ensure you have:
‘Who bought me this? I don't even like books’
mode, off’
Your mind switched to ‘open’
Willingness to take action set to ‘very’
Your sense of humour turned up to ‘max’
Learning mode fully engaged
Yellow highlighter for the really good bits
Likelihood to leave five-star review set to ‘highly’
Mug of favourite beverage (biscuit, optional)
All electronic devices turned off. Guessing that's not going to happen, so face down at least
Two important points before the off. First, it's important that you know LADULT contains a whole load of new information. New to you, and freshly created by your father-and-son writing team. It also contains some sections that are borrowed from Andy's other books – ideas that are so important that we've re-positioned them for young men.
Second, at no point are we going to tell you what to do. Our aim is to inform and entertain. Fingers crossed you enjoy the messages and, where necessary, are prodded into positive action. But, hey, that bit’s up to you.
Thank you.
Our puddle jumping, cartwheeling opener asks when you last ate a worm. Then it’s a numbers game where we reveal the unfairness of life before attempting to define what you actually are – a man in the making. Then to the really tricky bit: what exactly is a ‘man’? We get there via algae, angler fish and you'll be very grateful that you're not a Praying Mantis.
We introduce the concept of toxic masculinity, what it is, where it stems from and how to be the opposite. You'll learn about Dutch Disease and redefine ‘cool’ before moving on to some advice from the insect world. Plot spoiler: think like a bee and behave like a caterpillar – eat great food, sleep a lot, wake up beautiful.
It's worth hanging around for our chapter ending. Gilbert the alien, he's a joy.
But first, get revved up for something fast and furious.
Formula One is where the fastest drivers race the fastest cars in the world. To win an F1 race, you have to be faster and more furious than the other drivers. It's foot down, pedal to the metal all the way.
Except it isn't. Not quite.
The winning driver needs to come in for a couple of pit stops along the way. This is a chance to pull over, handbrake on, change tyres, refuel and get back in the race. The pit stops are crucial. If the driver fails to come in for a pit stop not only will he not win the race, he won't finish it.
You're so busy racing through life, navigating the day-to-day challenges of being a young man that you never get time out to reflect on your race strategy. LADULT is your pit stop. Press pause. Thinking time, refuelling your motivation and installing new habits before you re-enter the race of life.
But the Formula One analogy falls a little flat because F1 is full of glamour, wealth, exotic locations and sexy people, whereas most people's lives are a bit more bland. A more realistic analogy might be Mario Kart. Navigating through teenage growing pains has always been hazardous. Adolescence is a time of intense changes to your body, a ramping up of emotions as well as significant banana skins in your social world. Factor in the Mario Kart oil slicks of AI, neurodiversity, social media, terminally online ‘brain rot’ and easy access to porn, and you can find yourself spinning out of control.
So it's worth silently congratulating yourself for getting this far! You're on the Mario Kart grid. Our job is to get you ready for the craziness.
The point of LADULT is that you're a man-in-the-making, a male with L-plates. The book will help you sift through the excess of information there is about being a man and to help you make up your own mind about what kind of man you want to become.
That sentence is more important than it sounds because it points to potential pathways and choices that shape your future.
If you're already bursting with energy, brimming with confidence and have a backbone of steel, congrats. If you're acing school, have a dream job lined up, have hatched a plan to woo your perfect partner, have already chosen names for your three amazing children to be and have an unshakeable belief that you're going to nail an epic life, go you! You can skip LADULT. You have our permission to pass it on to someone else or leave it in the bathroom so your family can absorb the messages.
If, on the other hand, you need the cheat codes, then this book will race you through a few levels. We're unashamedly pitching in at ‘best life’ territory. Which, by spooky coincidence, starts by crafting your ‘best self’.
The question is, how? How the heck am I supposed to ‘live my best life’ and ‘be my best self’ when the world's throwing so much at me?
It’s a fair question because it’s mightily easy to NOT show up in life as your best self. There are a lot of people talking a good talk and curating a virtual version of ‘living the dream’, but if you scratch the surface, it’s a nightmare. There’s a lot of smoke and mirrors. Too many people are living a ‘karaoke life’ where they’re singing along to a song sheet written by somebody else.
As a teenager, you might have already noticed the magic withering away. Think of any under-five kid you know. Guaranteed they’re skipping, puddle-splashing, duck-chasing, story-listening, hand-holding, cartwheeling, worm-eating, sandcastle-building whirlwinds of energy, curiosity and fun. Just like you used to be.
Now think of any over 35 you know. When was the last time they jumped in a puddle, chased a duck or cartwheeled in the park?
Exactly!
‘Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?’
Charles Bukowski (American writer)
During our teenage years, we get the magic educated right out of us. We learn to fit into what society thinks we should be. You can feel like a square peg in a society of pre-drilled round holes. We learn that life comes in phases – born, nursery, school, college, work, consume, retire, die – and if all goes according to plan there should be some brief interludes of happiness along the way.
Here’s the problem with adults; they dish out a lot of advice that might or might not have worked for them ‘back in the day’. Our argument is that those days are gone.
Your days are different – radically faster, more pressurised and full-on than whenever ‘back in the day’ was.
Change doesn’t start with action. Don’t get me wrong, we need to take action along the way but that’s not where change starts. Deep, lasting change starts with us waking up and seeing things in a way that we didn’t see before. Action follows from there.
It’s a tap on the shoulder. Wakey-wakey. There's no learning, figuring out or action without that tap on the shoulder.
So here’s your tap. Your wake-up call, delivered by some important numbers.
Infinity is a concept, not a number. In actual fact, Graham's number is the biggest number in the world. It’s mindbogglingly immense. Graham's number is so big that if you wrote it down the numbers wouldn’t fit into the observable universe.
The average UK human lifespan is 4,212 weeks. Women tend to get a few more (4316 as against ours, which is 4108. Chill, we have got a whole section on life not being fair coming up soon)
And whereas your average cat has nine lives, humans tend to just get one. Again, not fair but life is what it is, a one-time only special offer.
This book is about the 4,000 or so weeks that the average human spends breathing.
That's 4,000 Mondays (boo-hiss!)
And 4,000 Saturdays (woo-hoo!)
Which, straight away, gets to the nub of the problem: social learning!
Usually, by age 10, young people have learned that Mondays are bad and Saturdays are good. It’s not formal learning. Nobody sits you down and explains it, but you look around at your teachers and parents and they seem to be a bit zombified on Monday, then, as the week progresses, they gradually spark into life, reaching full bloom at about 4 pm on Friday. Saturdays are epic. Sundays too, until about 7 pm when the ‘Smonday’ feeling kicks in.
SMONDAY The moment when Sunday stops feeling like a Sunday and the anxiety of Monday starts to kick in.
If literally everyone thinks Mondays are rubbish and literally everyone wakes up to the magnificence of life on Friday afternoon, guess what, it's easy to start doing the same.
We learn by watching others.[1] Human beings are the world's greatest fitter-inners.
But here’s the twist – if you want to have an amazing life you’re best off looking around at what everyone else is doing and NOT DOING THAT! Instead of being a fitter-inner, you need to learn to be a stander-outer.
Which is such a simple idea but really hard to execute in real life. To stand out you’d have to go against conventional wisdom and challenge yourself to do everything a bit better than you have to. That means being kinder than you have to, working harder than you have to, being more polite than you have to, listening better than you have to, doing your homework a bit better than you have to…
It makes perfect logical sense because it’s so obvious – over time, all these tiny changes would build up to a whopper of a difference. While everyone else is doing ‘just enough’ your ‘do it better than I have to’ mantra means you will power ahead.
This is a great theory until you factor in the teenage virus ‘can’t be botheredness’. It’s like flu, in that males catch it much worse than females. All this ‘best life’, ‘do extra’, ‘be better’ can sound like blah blah blah. Yes, I get it, but I’ll start tomorrow or next week or next year.
The bare-knuckled truth? You are living your one precious life. No rehearsals. No do-overs. No re-spawning.
This is it!
Your potential is one thing. What you do with it is quite another.
Tomorrow is a concept, created in the mind. It is a thought. Nobody actually lives there. In fact, nobody has ever visited tomorrow. Deciding to take action tomorrow means you’re opting for no action.
Good news – someone loves you enough to have bought this book for you. You can repay them three times over. First, with a genuine thank you. Second, by reading it cover to cover. Third, by taking positive action as a result of what you’ve read.
They bought LADULT because they want you to have an amazing life which is great but not enough. You have to want it too.
But, hey, the modern world has added extra layers of complexity, so before we properly begin, we have to dive into the thorny issue of what even is a man?
Something we need to make clear is that this book is for all young men. The book will mention relationships and sometimes we will talk about relationships with the opposite sex. But we are well aware that some of you reading this book may not be interested in girls, at least not in that way. We want you to know that this book is for you too, because whoever you are attracted to has no bearing on our message. We know that all young men can benefit from reading this book because all young men, whatever their preference, can fall victim to the curse of mediocrity and toxicity.
Becoming a wonderful human being is independent of who you fancy.
To those of you to whom this applies, you might sometimes face challenges that heterosexual people won’t face. This is completely unfair, and we’re sorry if this happens to you, but it’s why we think LADULT is vital for you.
It’ll help you thrive when you encounter those who carry the bigotry gene.
Opinions have always existed. Theories too. Oh, and idiots have been around forever.
Back in the day, you were free to share your views with your closest few. Then communication went viral and nowadays everyone can share their opinions with millions of people across the world. Experts have a platform, wise people have a voice but so do idiots and rabble rousers. Theories morph into conspiracies. The debate can get loud, toxic and downright confusing.
Some of the debate is useful: Is eating bread good or bad for you? Is global warming real? Do we actually need democracy? Is social media damaging? And some less so: Is the earth flat? Are big data companies using our personal information to fulfil their grand scheme where the global elites enslave us all with a mind virus and turn us into brain mush puppets who will do nothing but consume to our heart's content while they feed on endangered animals and bathe in virgins' blood?
Hard to tell. Depends on whom you listen to.
This ability to hear extreme opinions on any subject means that we are struggling to come to a consensus on anything,[2] including things that used to be rock solid such as the definition of a man (or indeed a woman).
Which begs the question, what does the word ‘man’ mean to you?
It is a word that conjures up different things for different people. Some may think of physical strength, deep voice, a square jaw and a traditional ‘real man’ occupation that requires them to wear a high viz jacket and hard hat. Others may think of oppression and toxicity. To some it is a hard biological fact, something you either are or are not, to others it is a purely social category that can be floated in and out of at will.[3]
The fluidity of the modern definition matches the slipperiness of the experience of being a male of the species. Men's role in society is increasingly being questioned, with some people stating that men need to ‘change’ whereas others claim that men need to ‘keep being men more than ever’.[4] On the one hand we learn that ‘real men don’t cry’ and, on the other, that ‘modern men should express their emotions’. Teenage boys can get caught up in all this swirling debate. It’s head-scratchingly confusing – are we supposed to ‘man up’ or ‘man down’?
To untangle some of the confusion, let’s rewind to a couple of billion years ago when everything was a lot less complicated. In fact, ‘life’ back then couldn’t have been simpler, mostly consisting of micro-organisms like algae. They reproduced asexually, meaning that they could have ‘babies’ without the input of another organism, and it would often occur under times of stress.[5] Imagine going back to these ‘good old days’ – you’re feeling a bit stressed about an exam and BOOM – you spontaneously clone yourself.
At some point between one and two billion years ago, ‘sexual reproduction’ emerged. All sexual reproduction actually means is just the mixing of the genetics of two members of the same species to create unique offspring. Eventually, although we aren’t exactly sure when, this led to some species having two distinct members. These were ones that carried sperm and ones that carried eggs. Or, as we would go on to call them, males and females.[6]
In most species of animals on earth, males and females are different. This includes humans.
When we say males and females, we do not mean what individuals identify as; we are talking about biological sex. Males and females of species being different is something called sexual dimorphism, and it’s something that varies between many species on earth.[7] In some species there are only small differences between the males and females, whereas in others there are very extreme differences.
One very extreme example is the deep-sea angler fish, which is the scary fish with a lamp on its head as seen in Finding Nemo. Female angler fish are the ones we are used to seeing, with the scary teeth and the headlamp, whereas the male angler fish are tiny, way smaller than the females. The weirdest part is that when the angler fish mate, the tiny male latches on to the female and permanently fuses to her body like a parasite, gaining nutrients from her in exchange for providing sperm… how romantic. This weird relationship occurs because of the extreme pitch-black deep-sea environment that the angler fish live in. It’s a crazy example but it goes to show how males and females can be vastly different.[8]
However tough things might seem for the modern male, consider yourself lucky that you’re not a Praying Mantis. Famously, in the mantis community, the female eats the male, often during or before sexual intercourse. Yes, you read that correctly – ‘before’ – headless lovemaking is a thing in the mantis community.[9]
We’ll spare you the gory boyish details; suffice it to say that the act of Mantis lovemaking is often his final act. No wonder they’re called Praying Mantis! ‘If there’s a God up there, Dear Lord, please don’t let her chew my head off.’
Humans are sexually dimorphic, but thankfully not as significantly as the angler fish. Female humans mature earlier than males, which is why early in secondary school most of the girls are taller than you, as well as going through menstruation once a month. Adult human males usually have deeper voices and grow more facial/body hair, and on average are bigger and stronger than females. The key here is that I say on average. There are some very impressive female athletes out there who can out bench-press me by a mile. But on average a woman's strength is between 60% and 80% of that of a man's, with men having a particular advantage in the upper body. Adult males tend to be taller, have more muscle mass, stronger bones, larger lungs/heart, and better designed joints for athleticism than women.[10] This is why most sports are divided into genders because it’s not a level playing field in terms of strength and speed.[11]
Throughout human history, males and females have played to their natural strengths.
It’s commonly believed that when we lived in tribal societies (100,000+ years ago) it made sense to harness men's strength and speed and send them to hunt large animals (although women would still hunt smaller animals and find other foods), and that the men would be the ones who fought in conflicts against other tribes.[12]
Women had more of a child-rearing role, particularly with younger children. For thousands of years this was just the way it was. The difference between men and women, male and female, was written into their world. For a lot of human history, laws and rules have been written by men and for men. Women have generally been much more restricted in the things they were allowed to do or even to say. Women were forbidden for centuries from participating in politics and were also banned from doing many of the same activities as men, such as going to school or playing sports. It was even considered ‘unwomanly’ to read too much![13]
Understandably, many women were not happy with this arrangement and, thankfully, the first wave of feminism opened up women's right to vote in the UK in 1928. Education changed, legislation gave women equal rights, and we are where we are today. We can look around at parts of the world where women haven’t got the same rights and freedoms, and think of ourselves as incredibly fortunate to be living in a fair society. (Note, fair doesn’t mean perfect. We still have some way to go).
In many areas women haven’t just caught up, they’ve overtaken us! For example, girls are now 35% more likely to go to university than boys.[14] This means that the old dynamic of the man going out to earn the money while the woman stays at home to look after the family is pretty old school.
With women now not needing men to have money, be successful or even to raise children, the role of men has become less well defined. Which brings us full circle to the question that kicked off this section: what does the word ‘man’ mean to you?
Most people are lovely. But a small minority of males and females are toxic. There is actually something called ‘toxic femininity’ but it tends not to hit the headlines like its male equivalent. Toxic masculinity is a phrase that’s cloaked in confusion, so let’s unmask it for you.
As the name implies, it’s positioned at the poisonous end of manliness. It’s linked with misogyny (dislike, disrespect or prejudice against women) and the need to dominate by force.[15]
It’s definitely to be avoided. But some of the swirling confusion arises from those with loud social media voices. The shouty people have claimed that men who exercise are being toxic, that video games cause toxic masculinity, sitting with your legs apart (‘manspreading’) is toxic, and that liking team sports is a toxic masculine trait. At the extreme end of the argument, men are labelled as ‘toxic’ just for being men.
Let’s draw a line in the sand here. Yes, toxic masculinity does exist but it isn’t toxic to exercise, play games or to like competitive sports. Oh, and ‘manspreading’ isn’t an act of sexist dominance, merely a comfortable way to sit when you’ve got a set of balls between your legs.[16] That said, sitting uncomfortably with your legs crossed to give other people room is a polite thing to do.
Genuine toxic masculinity exists in the form of those guys who always need to prove something by force. You’ll wince when you see it. The guy that can’t take any criticism without throwing a tantrum, who always feels the need to pick on someone whom he sees as an easy target, who goes out of their way to harass girls, who takes banter way too far, and who always has to have ‘their way’.
The toxics make other people feel bad about themselves so that they can feel better about themselves. You have to admit that having a desire to make other people feel low is pretty low in and of itself.
So where does this come from? How come some men end up being toxic but others don’t? The simple truth is that it’s a coping mechanism that often stems from a lack of confidence.[17] Someone who is not confident talking to girls will resort to being mean to them to hide their nerves; someone who is not confident in themselves will resort to putting others down to make themselves feel better; someone who is not confident won’t be able to take jokes or criticism because they’re unsure of themselves.
Which points to a big ‘what if?’
Rather than men being toxic by nature, what if it’s just that there are too many men who are lacking in confidence? For some men, life is one big contest of showing how cool they are and in the mad scramble to be top dog, their masculine poison bubbles to the surface.
So hang in there for some big thoughts, via the Netherlands …
There is a concept in economics (stay with me) known as Dutch disease. The idea is that if a country's economy relies too much on making money from one thing, then the country is asking for trouble. It’s called Dutch disease because it happened in the Netherlands, where the discovery of a huge field of natural gas caused other industries in the country to decline.[18]
Putting all of your eggs into an unreliable basket can happen to entire nations but it can also happen to personal confidence.
If you’re always relying on the outside world for your confidence, then you’re essentially gambling with your wellbeing. Think about it – if you rely on others to feel confident but other people don’t give you what you need, then all of a sudden your confidence is way down, and this might lead to some toxic behaviour to try to make yourself feel better (maybe by picking on someone or by lashing out).
Of course, it’s nice to get reassurance and approval from people whose opinions about us really matter, but we shouldn’t be relying on it. The key to real confidence is realising that it comes from within. Confidence is boosted if you have self-belief that you are becoming a better person. It doesn’t happen overnight; confidence comes bit by bit, day by day, and being able to answer (honestly), am I a better human than I was yesterday?