What My Mum Taught Me About Success (Without Realizing It)

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Happy Sunday everyone,

​Ever wonder why the women in your life can handle texting, cooking, juggling, and watching a show, all at the same time? Men and women are literally built different.

Women's brains have more white matter, enhancing communication between the left and right hemispheres, which boosts multitasking abilities.

Men's brains, with more grey matter, are optimized for focused tasks.

In today’s email:

1. Why Masculine Needs Feminine and how to get the best of both…

2. How To Harness Feminity As A Young Man and exactly why you’d want to…

POWER SURGE

Reimagining Success Through A Female Lens

I was walking with my mum this morning in a country park (it's Mother's Day here in the UK) when a thought struck me.

During our conversation, I found her perspective completely different from mine and from what I’d get from my male friends.

It was not better or worse - just different in a way that opened up solutions I hadn't considered.

As a male in my 20s, I realize my worldview is pretty male-orientated, but I recognise some communities may be reversed. For example, Mark Zuckerberg recently spoke out about needing more masculinity in corporate America.

But, it got me thinking about how we put traits in a box and label them "masculine" or "feminine", and how these stereotypes shape our approach to success, especially for high-achieving men in professional environments.

What if masculine men could harness the benefits of more feminine traits like compassion and patience?

I’m not calling for men to become more feminine - I believe that’s as incorrect as saying women should be more masculine.

But, what if we could walk down the divide and pick the best traits of both groups to create a worldview greater than the sum of their parts?

Let's explore how some traditionally "maternal" traits might complement the drive, competitiveness, and decisive action that is often exhibited by young men.

P.S Happy Mothers Day Mum :)

How To Harness Your Feminity As A Young Man

A mindset I fall into all the time is if I just do a little more, I’ll reach my goals faster.

But that is rarely the case:

• 100 sets of bench press in one day will grow a fraction of muscle than 10 sets over 10 weeks.

• 14 hours of work in one day will be substantially less productive than two 7-hour days.

Time + Consistency = Positive Outcomes.

Feminity teaches us to nurture growth, not to apply a brute-force mentality.

Similarly, the World Economic Forum puts Emotional intelligence as the top skill to learn in 2025 - something else feminity can help us with.

From a young age, girls are encouraged to express emotions and develop empathy, while boys are socialized to suppress emotions and prioritize logic

Emotional awareness isn't some soft, secondary skill, in fact, some the things I admire most in my role models are skills like reading a room instantly and understanding unspoken dynamics at play.

I watched a managing partner defuse a tense client situation the other week by picking up on subtle cues and answering his question exactly in his words, all I could do was respect the guy and take notes.

Women tend to form larger and strong networks than men and we men need to remember there's wisdom in thinking about how decisions affect our whole network, not just our individual progress.

I’m lucky to have a number of training partners in the gym who keep me accountable and I honestly have a great manager at work. This network has been more valuable to my progress than probably any other factor.

After all, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know

Perhaps the most countercultural take in today's world of instant gratification is patience.

Anything worth building (e.g. physique, career) requires thinking in years, not weeks.

My mum is an excellent planner and organises her life around long-term goals.

She plants trees knowing she might not see them fully grown and invests in relationships that might take years to flourish.

I'm not suggesting we abandon traditionally masculine approaches that serve us well.

The drive, assertiveness, and risk-taking have their place, but complementing them with these equally valuable traits creates a more complete toolkit for personal development.

What trait from this list might expand your toolkit in the coming week? I'd be curious to hear which resonates most with you.

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