How to Live Like the Superior Man: Tips From Deida

This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Way Of The Superior Man" by David Deida. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.

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How does the Superior Man live his life? How can you like the Superior Man?

In the book The Way of the Superior Man, Deida explains that the Superior Man lives his life with purpose, authenticity, and love. Deida’s goal is to help you to reclaim the passion in your relationship and enjoy the fullest degree of intimacy and fulfillment.

Continue below for Deida’s advice on how to become the Superior Man.

You Yearn for Emptiness, She Yearns for Fullness

The Superior Man understands what drives him and what drives his woman, and he uses that understanding to optimize his pursuit of their joint purpose.

The masculine seeks freedom in release from constraint and stress.

Men are driven to pursue freedom—to push through all forms of constraint, release ourselves, and experience the total freedom of complete emptiness. Our deepest motivation is to face death and overcome it.

We see this in football: Our goal is to push through the constraint of our opponents and carry the ball to freedom. In war, we face death in service of a higher cause, giving our all for the sake of freedom. Even our orgasm is a slow build-up of tension until the moment of release frees us and empties us, mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

To be free, you must face your fears and give up anything that limits your ability to love. Your attachment to comfort and security limits your capacity to achieve a spiritual touchdown. Your need for security is the constraint you must push past. Your fear of surrendering your independent self is the death you must face to achieve the freedom of total one-ness.

The feminine seeks fullness in surrender to love and devotion.

Women are driven to pursue love—their path to fullness is surrender, rather than release. In sex, their desire is to be filled, connected, unified, and made whole. That’s why they’re disappointed when you stop holding them after your orgasm; you’ve achieved the freedom of release, but she’s achieved the fullness of surrender and wants to remain One.

The feminine search for fullness is what leads her to fill her shelves with trinkets and tchotchkes; it’s what drives her to fill her body and heart with chocolate, shopping, and conversation. She wants to fill the emptiness in her spirit with love and connection.

In the end, both masculine and feminine arrive at the same destination.

Your truest release and her greatest fullness rest at the cores of your being. In discovering and embodying your truest selves, you attain your greatest freedom and she achieves her greatest love. Until you relax into your cores, she’ll always seek to fill herself and you’ll always seek release.

Continue to Be True to Yourself

The Superior Man’s focus is on growth—he charts the course so others can follow, trusting the stability of his wisdom and the openness of his heart. In this section, you’ll learn the importance of trusting your core.

Embrace Your Core

The journey of life is about constantly discovering deeper truths and consistently re-evaluating and reorganizing yourself around them. Live from the stable internal core of your being instead of focusing yourself around your responsibilities.

You’ll only have the energy to love fully if you’re not wasting it by struggling with dissatisfaction.

Many men lose track of who they are at their core because they habitually focus their attention outward, on the tasks and events of each day. Your engagement with everything else is secondary and superficial when you’re not loving them fully: your job, your wife, your children, your money, your art, and your pleasure.

What to Do:

Your priority at all times should be to be who you are at your deepest level.

Even in trivial moments, stay connected to who you are; nothing you’ve experienced has changed anything about who you are at your core. When you embrace yourself, you can face each moment with the humor, clarity, and completeness that comes from understanding that every moment is equally significant.

How to find your core:

  • Feel the source of your attention and where it comes from.
  • Spend your time with inspirational people who reflect that source to you.
  • Read books that remind you of the truth of who you are.
  • Contemplate, meditate, or pray daily.

Trust Your Own Wisdom

Nobody will trust you to make good decisions if you always do what they suggest instead of following what you think is right. They’ll see that you’re not acting according to the truth you feel in your core, and you’ll lose their respect and trust.

Even your woman doesn’t want you to blindly obey her. She wants a superior man, one who follows the road of his deepest truth and does what he knows to be right. Her desire is to see the strength of your love, freedom, and consciousness. When she tests the stability of your purpose, she’s challenging you to uncompromisingly be your best.

When you trust your own wisdom and take responsibility for your decisions, you become more trustworthy and more capable of acting in the future.

What to Do:

Instead of simply acting, practice being fully conscious in every moment. Breathe deeply, stay open, and consult your deepest truth. Weigh the pressures that drive you to act against your internal compass, and then act in the way you know is right. Trust yourself, and take responsibility for the result. Whether you’re right or wrong, learn from the outcome and deepen your understanding of yourself.

Remember Why You’re Here

Without purpose, you’re a ship adrift at sea. Nothing you do grows you, nothing calls to you, and nothing demands your full engagement. Events lose their profoundness, and you fail to enjoy them or learn from them in meaningful ways. You sleepwalk through your days, impotent in life, career, and sex.

Many men waste their lives focused entirely on duties and tasks, noses to the grindstone. They never realize their deepest truth, feel the infinite mystery of existence, fully give their gift, or love entirely and uncompromisingly. No matter how many tasks they complete, they get no closer to becoming fully conscious, free, and wholeheartedly loving. Instead, they die, unsatisfied, at the end of an empty, monotonous life.

It’s good to be disciplined and purposeful, but when it disconnects you from your larger purpose you lose your freedom and perspective. When you know your core and are aligned with it, everything you do becomes an expression of your purpose. Your work and your intimacy become opportunities to give your fullest gifts and to enjoy the act of giving.

Your daily tasks must serve your purpose and lead you toward your deepest truth, or they waste your time.

What to Do:

Identify your deepest desire and discipline yourself accordingly. Align everything in your life—your diet, your activities, your career—with your purpose; choose every action so that it satisfies that purpose. Live intentionally, and pursue growth.

Interrupt your tasks with the following refreshers:

  • Contemplate your own death.
  • Consider the mystery of existence.
  • Relax into the deepest love you’re capable of feeling.
  • Examine the mindset of those you most respect.
  • Remember the infinite, in your own way.

Follow the Inward Spiral

The journey of life is a process of fully living one obligation, mission, or purpose at a time until it is finished and the next one can begin. When you fulfill a purpose, you grow closer to the truth of your heart—your deepest purpose. You unlock a deeper layer and open yourself to more fulfilling opportunities.

It’s natural, when a purpose is fulfilled, to lose interest in it. It no longer motivates you because you’ve satisfied your need to engage in it.

You’ll know you’ve completed a layer of purpose when you have no regrets about having started or ended that project. The prospect of moving on excites and energizes you. Engaging with it further feels pointless, because you no longer have a reason to.

Even if you don’t know what your next step will be, you don’t feel confused or burdened. It’s time to move on.

What to Do:

Make a clean break, even if it takes extra time; don’t burden yourself or others with obligation.

Avoid distractions like tv, video games, dating, and drinking. Remain open to a vision of what’s next by spending time alone and consciously keeping yourself open. It may take time, and your vision may lack details, but act on the impulse as soon as it arrives.

The more deeply you become involved in your new purpose, the clearer the details will get. Learn by trial and error, and give your gift as fully and openly as you can. Any confusion will fade into clarity, and you’ll find yourself doing what you love and loving what you do.

Eventually, you’ll discover that your purpose no longer excites, engages, and fulfills you. When that happens, you’ll know it’s time to move on again. The things you’ve learned and experienced will guide you toward your next, deeper purpose. This is the cycle of karma—letting go and moving on, toward your deepest purpose and your fullest love.

How to Live Like the Superior Man: Tips From Deida

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Here's what you'll find in our full The Way Of The Superior Man summary :

  • How to reclaim the passion in your relationship and enjoy true intimacy
  • Why authenticity is the first key in becoming a superior man
  • Why you should embrace your sexual polarity

Hannah Aster

Hannah graduated summa cum laude with a degree in English and double minors in Professional Writing and Creative Writing. She grew up reading books like Harry Potter and His Dark Materials and has always carried a passion for fiction. However, Hannah transitioned to non-fiction writing when she started her travel website in 2018 and now enjoys sharing travel guides and trying to inspire others to see the world.

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