Manscape - Preface

   The inspiration for this book came from a shaving cream commercial. A rookie was in the locker room getting ready to shave with a face full of foam. A veteran player comes in and asks sternly: What are you doing? The rookie said: I’m about to shave. So the veteran says: No one uses foam anymore. Here, use this Edge Gel. The rookie looked up at him as if he was about to cry and said: Nobody told me! The way he said “Nobody told me” struck my heart and I said to myself: that’s it! Nobody told me! The reason I struggled as a young man to be a good husband, father, and provider is because nobody told me what to do or how to do it. I realized then that this is the same reason every man struggles with the same issues. Nobody told them either.

   The primary emotional stressors that men must contend with on a daily basis are anger, frustration, and confusion due largely to the pressure of trying to be a husband, father, and provider. Men suffer in silence as we try to fulfill all of the demands that our families and society place upon us while we are expected to be stronger than Sampson, wiser than Solomon, and wealthier than Rockefeller. We are required to know all and be everything when no one has really shown us how to do anything. Most days we are just doing the best we can with what we have and the pressure builds because we know that it is not enough.

   Over 40% of men in America were born to an unwed mother. If you are a Black man that number rises to over 70%. The greatest social, cultural, and financial problem plaguing every nation across the globe is fatherlessness. The pressure on men who grew up without a father is even more intense because we had no man to guide us into the knowledge we need to meet the demands and successfully perform in the multifaceted role of a man.

   Being fatherless is causing many men to struggle psychologically due to a lack of identity and a sense of purpose. This is why men can put sports jersey on with another man’s name on their back. Only women take on another man’s name. Sadly, the guy that they are trying to emulate or look to for a sense of identity doesn’t even know who he is. To compound the issue society is pushing men to be more effeminate and literally forcing them to accept those who are as equals. It is already hard to define what a man is. Now we have essentially lost the definition of manhood, masculine value, vision, significance, and authority in society and in our families. We have nearly lost all the respect and reverence that children should have for men; especially in blended families. Programs on TV condition children to believe that they are smarter than men. “This is so easy even my dad can do it!” Most of the commercials depict women alone with their children giving the impression that a daddy is not necessary.

   Do you know the reason men like to identify with sports figures? It is because they are winners. Every man wants to be identified as a winner. But do you know why they are winners? It is because they play on a team. The word team is an acronym that means: Together Everybody Achieves More. Teams begin as a group of men coming together to achieve the same goal. They transform from a group into a team because they coalesce around a unified mindset by operating from the same playbook. Winning teams transform their individual thinking into a singular mind. They become unified in spirit, work to achieve the same goal, train their bodies to overcome opposition, and therefore they win. GOD is seeking to transform HIS men from sinners to winners; from a group to a team that will work to transform their spirit, minds, and bodies with the unified goal of transforming the world.

   Manscape: Cultivating the Perfect Life is the playbook that will make you a winner at the game of being a provider, husband, and father. It contains the essential knowledge every man needs to successfully lead and love his wife, raise his children, produce wealth, and live a perfect and victorious life. Society says that nobody can be perfect but that is a lie and this book will show you why. We have been made mediocre by the memes and morays imposed on us by men who don’t know GOD. With those people perfection is impossible but with GOD all things are possible.

   A man who can’t read is no worse off that a man who won’t read. Read this book you’ll never be the same. The only reason you’ll remain unchanged is by choice. If you are honest with yourself you will have to admit the knowledge you have been operating on has not led you to where you really want to be financially. When challenged on that fact some men become bound and determined to be right and to hold on to what they know. But that mindset keeps us bound in position and stuck in our current condition.

   I have seen too many men deprive themselves of a better life because the knowledge they needed to create that life came in a book. They convinced themselves that they either didn’t need the book or that they couldn’t afford to buy it. They do that because nobody told them that the cost of ignorance is always higher than the price of knowledge. Nobody told them that it is better to sacrifice short term need for long term gain. Men become billionaires because of what they know and men struggle to feed their families because of what they don’t know. They don’t know that it is more expensive to lose a woman than it is to love a woman. If you are tired of struggling or being depressed because you can’t give your wife and children everything they want, it is time to sacrifice a couple of six packs, a pack of cigarettes, or lunch for one day to get the knowledge every wealthy man has used to help his family see better, brighter, and more prosperous days.