by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
Three Pillars for Living Your Realest Life as A Man
Every man has two options in life:
He can either chase the illusions of ego or he can align himself with reality.
One path leads to force, frustration, and endless fragmentation; the other leads to flow, strength, and realness.
If you want to be the ‘best’ man you can be, you need to commit to the second path – the path of reality (because reality is the only place you can ever expect to get any results).
This isn’t just some abstract philosophy that feels good to think about – it’s a practical process of getting in touch with your own REALNESS and it’s something that can be lived and breathed every single day.
In my own life, I’ve found that growth as a man rests on three key pillars – these aren’t arbitrary ideas or borrowed self-help clichés but principles I’ve tested in my own life and in the lives of the men I work with:
What I’ve seen is that when I hold fast to these pillars, I grow stronger, more real, and more capable of meeting life with open eyes.
The three pillars are simple to say but powerful to live by:
- Trust God
- Be a good man
- Love your partner
This article will help you to understand each ‘pillar’ in more detail and to show you how can apply these ideas to your own life.
Let’s dig a little deeper:
Three Pillars of Being a Real Man: What We’ll Cover In This Article
- Three Pillars for Living Your Realest Life as A Man
- Pillar 1: Trust God
- Pillar 2: Be a Good Man
- Pillar 3: Love Your Partner
- Three Pillars of Being a Real Man: Why Trust God Comes First
- Practical Steps to Implement the Three Pillars of Being a Real Man
- Three Pillars of Being a Real Man: The Final Word
Pillar 1: Trust God
First things first:
When I say “Trust God”, I’m not talking about blindly following dogma, ticking boxes at a church, or imagining a bearded man in the sky pulling the strings of your life.
No, trusting God is deeper, simpler, and far more real than that because it’s about humility.
It’s about recognising that no matter how clever, strong, or capable you are, you’re never in total control of everything that happens in your life:
You can make decisions, take action, and move with purpose but – no matter how strong you might be – life will still throw you curveballs, challenges, and setbacks that you couldn’t possibly predict.
When you trust God, you learn to let go of the constant need to control the uncontrollable and, instead, you learn to ride through periods of uncertainty with the faith that you can handle whatever comes your way.
When you trust like this, you stop demanding that life bends to your will and instead move with the flow of reality, knowing that – even when you don’t quite understand it – life is constantly shaping you, burning away anything unreal, and pulling you back towards what’s actually real.
Trusting God doesn’t mean that you never feel doubt or fear – it simply means that you stop letting doubt or fear control you.
In this state, you’re able to finally stop resisting reality and start accepting it and this foundation of acceptance opens you up, deepens you, and allows you to grow stronger.
The uncomfortable truth is that every man who refuses to trust God ends up being controlled by his ego and so he clings, he forces, he panics, and he manipulates his way through life until – eventually – he burns himself out chasing illusions.
On the other hand, the man who trusts God becomes unshakeable because he’s not standing on the sand of ego but on the rock of reality and so he has a lasting foundation that can get him through this life until they day that he dies.
This is why “Trust God” is the most important of the three pillars – it’s the foundation on which everything else rests and gives you the strength of your own realness required to show up as the man you were born to really be.
Pillar 2: Be a Good Man
Once you’ve built your foundation by trusting God, the next step is to live by a code that’s aligned with your real values and vision for yourself and your life.
Being a good man doesn’t mean being ‘perfect’ (which doesn’t exist) – nor does it mean that you’re always smiling, always agreeable, or that you never make mistakes.
What it does mean is that you live with integrity, you know your values, you have a clear moral code, and you align your actions with that code – even when it’s difficult, even when it costs you, and even when your (temporary) feelings are pulling you back into old habits and ways of being.
Too many men today are lost in moral relativism:
They let their short-term emotions dictate their choices, or they let the culture around them define what’s ‘right ‘and ‘wrong’ instead of tapping into their own timeless wisdom but – if you want to grow as a real man – you need to take responsibility for knowing what you stand for and then standing for it.
Here’s another piece of the puzzle:
Being a good man also means doing the inner work.
You need to integrate your shadow – the ‘parts’ of yourself you’ve denied, suppressed, or hidden behind your ego in order to be acceptable in the eyes of the world:
Every man has this kind of darkness inside himself and, if you don’t face it, that darkness will control you – showing up as anger, projection, self-sabotage, or addiction – but if you’re willing to look it in the eye, to accept it, and to bring it into the light, that same energy can be transformed into strength.
Being a good man also means you don’t live for yourself alone, that you don’t make your ego the centre of the universe, and, instead, you orient your life around a sense of purpose:
Real purpose isn’t about chasing fame, money, or external validation (despite what social media might make you believe) – it’s about taking your values and making them valuable to others.
It’s about asking:
How can I serve? How can I create? How can I contribute something REAL?
When you live this way, your life stops being small and fuelled by self-obsession and you become a man who can be relied on, a man who makes things better, and a man who leaves a mark – that’s what it means to be a good man.
Pillar 3: Love Your Partner
The third pillar is ultimately about intimacy:
If you’re in a relationship, loving your partner isn’t just about buying flowers, date nights, or surface-level gestures – it’s about creating a container where both of you can face the truth together and grow in intimacy and realness.
To love your partner is to serve them – not in a weak, co-dependent or self-abandoning way, but in a strong, real way which means you’re not just taking, not just demanding, but actively creating a relationship where truth, respect, and growth are at the centre and you do what you can to support their growth and aspirations.
Here’s an important caveat, though:
You can only do this if your partner is aligned with the same vision – if they’re committed to serving you in return and to honouring truth in the relationship, then together you can build something extraordinary. Without this foundation, though, love will quickly become a battlefield of egos instead of a sanctuary of realness.
But what if you’re not in a relationship right now, I hear you ask?
Well, in the case of singlehood, then “loving your partner means preparing yourself for the relationship you’ll one day have (if you want one which you probably do if you’re on the path to integration and wholeness):
It means doing the inner work now – trusting God, integrating your shadow, and finding your purpose – so that when the time comes, you can bring your full, real self to the relationship instead of showing up half-built and desperate.
Real love doesn’t hurt (despite what the old saying says) – what does hurt is when two egos clash and try to control each other.
On the other hand, when two real people come together, love becomes a place of growth, intimacy, and truth.
That’s as REAL as it gets.
Three Pillars of Being a Real Man: Why Trust God Comes First
Of these three pillars, the first is the most important because Trusting God is the foundation for everything else:
Without trust, you’ll collapse into fear and this fear will poison your code, distort your purpose, and wreck your relationships.
When you trust God, it’s also much easier to let go of the ego’s endless craving for control:
Instead, you can stand tall in uncertainty, move forward with courage, and keep growing real no matter what life throws your way – this is truly the kind of trust that allows you to be a good man and to truly love your partner.
My book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace will help you to create a real and lasting foundation of trust in your life.
Practical Steps to Implement the Three Pillars of Being a Real Man
Theory without practice is useless so here are some practical ways you can implement these three pillars in your daily life:
1. Trust God
- Daily Surrender Practice: Each morning, take five minutes to sit quietly and remind yourself: “I’m not in control of everything and so today I’ll meet reality with openness and courage“.
- Reframe Setbacks: Whenever something goes ‘wrong’, stop and ask yourself: “How is this an opportunity to grow more real?” Train yourself to see challenges as refinements in your character and growth, not punishments or failure.
- Practice Letting Go: Notice where you’re forcing things in life – for example, clinging to control or obsessing over outcomes. Experiment with loosening your grip instead.
2. Be a Good Man
- Write Your Code: Sit down and write out your values and principles. What do you stand for? What won’t you compromise on? Keep it simple but make it clear so you know how you need to show up in your life.
- Shadow Work: Journal about the traits in others that trigger you. What might they reveal about your own hidden shadow? Explore, accept, and integrate.
- Purpose Practice: Each week, ask yourself: “How can I make my values more valuable to others?” Then take one action that puts your answer into practice.
3. Love Your Partner
- Truth First: Make truth the highest value in your relationship and always commit to being honest – even when it’s uncomfortable. Invite your partner to do the same and make it a basic agreement that holds your relationship together.
- Serve Each Other: Look for daily ways to serve – not from weakness, but from strength. Ask: What does my partner need right now to grow and flourish and how can I help with this?
- Prepare If You’re Single: Focus on building yourself into a man who can hold space for intimacy – in other words, do the inner work required so that when love arrives, you can meet it with realness instead of ego.
Three Pillars of Being a Real Man: The Final Word
Being a real man isn’t about chasing some Hollywood action movie caricature of masculinity but about living in alignment with reality, letting go of ego, and committing yourself to what’s true.
Trust God. Be a good man. Love your partner.
Work on these three things and you’ll not only grow stronger and deeper as a man but you’ll also create a life that’s rooted in realness, a life that flows, and a life that actually ‘works’.
Stay real out there,
P.S. If you’re ready to work on being the best man that you can be then book a free coaching call with me today and I’ll help you to start taking real action in your life.
Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace is a book about learning to return to your realness by cultivating trust in yourself and trust in life.
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This book will answer many of the questions you have growing REAL and flowing towards wholeness. It covers everything from shame to addiction to the unconscious mind and synchronicity (and way more).
Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness is a book designed to help you look at your life from the inside-out so that you can stop holding yourself back and go get what you really want.
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Shadow Life is an exploration of the human shadow and the hidden side of our personalities. It looks at the masks we wear, where these masks come from, and how we can take them off.
The book explores how we can better manage our relationships with shame, guilt, and trauma in order to remove the Mask that the world has asked us to wear (and that we forgot we were wearing) so we can live an authentic life with less drama, chaos, or BS whilst we’re still around.
The Flow Builder Journal has everything you need to make the next 21-weeks of your life a turning point.
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