Book Review — Mask of Masculinity
It is a fact that growing up without parents is tough. Even when you have a great support system and an extended family that cares about you, you’d still go through this feeling of misery, insecurity, and loneliness. It would be way worse if you lose any of your parents to suicide. I know that and the research proves that. Now, that’s one tough circumstance I had to experience in my early childhood, and perhaps that’s what made me become who I am today; an introvert who loves books and fancies content on the Internet over communication IRL. Now, there are over seven billion people in the world that go through some sort of difficulty, shame, guilt, and sometimes trauma. It’s just the levels that vary.
Coming to the author Lewis Howes, he publicly said that he was sexually abused when he was a kid. And from that point, his journey to becoming one of the most valued entrepreneurs and podcasters in the country of the United States was an inspiring story. My first introduction to Lewis Howes was through one of his podcast episodes. In fact, it was an informative and educative interview he did, and it was great. His storytelling inspired me to do better, and I remember searching for his podcast on the same night. It was half a decade ago, when I was in Ireland. I was 27, living in Ireland around half a decade ago. However, one of the core reasons for me to start listening to podcasts was simple: to communicate fluently.
Going back to Lewis Howes’ podcast, The School Of Greatness, it’s where I listened to one of the most successful people, and a lot of influencers, entrepreneurs, and life coaches I follow on social today. My interest in podcasting grew over the years through him, his show, and his podcast guests. The School of Greatness is still, to this day, one of the most successful and active podcasts in the world. Later on, I got hooked on audiobooks. I used to listen to shorter versions of audiobooks during my commute to work. And that’s when I came across the book ‘’Mask of Masculinity’’.
Author’s Introduction:
LEWIS HOWES is a New York Times Bestselling author of the hit book, The School of Greatness. He is a lifestyle entrepreneur, high-performance business coach, and keynote speaker. A former professional football player and two-sport All-American, he is a current USA Men’s National Handball Team athlete. He hosts a top 100 iTunes-ranked podcast, The School of Greatness, which has over 100 million downloads and over 1300 episodes since it launched in 2013. The White House and President Obama recognized Lewis as one of the top 100 entrepreneurs in the country under 30. Details Magazine called him one of the “5 Internet Gurus that can Make You Rich.” Lewis is a contributing writer for Entrepreneur and has been featured on Ellen, The Today Show, The New York Times, People, Forbes, Inc, Fast Company, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Men’s Health, and other major media outlets.
Book Review:
The book Mask of Masculinity comprises 11 major chapters on Audible and is over 6 hours. The book starts off with an introduction into Lewis Howes’ childhood, his beliefs into what a real man is. Mostly, it’s about working hard and being tough. And he described why it didn’t work for him to find his happier self and why the ideology is not as real as it’s told. He addressed the driving factors for violence, depression and suicides in men, and his desire to help with the help of this book. The book discusses the masks that we men wear to hide our emotions or to confront or transition through a situation and elaborates on the idea of becoming free from all these masks and live our lives greatly by being true to ourselves. Lewis mentioned it clearly that it’s not lecturing or criticising, but to come up with a helpful resource for you to become a better version of yourself. And after the whole book, it’s safe to say that I agree with that. We all have our own ideologies, an opinion, and a definition of what a man is, and that’s where the book helps men to be more of themselves and not to abide by the unrealistic ideologies and the standards that would suffer them long time.
In Lewis’ words, we all have our own insecurities and fears. And intentionally or unintentionally, we cover up our insecurities, our vulnerabilities, mostly in fear. The interesting part for me was when Lewis said how he could come to this place of understanding. He said it was by asking thoughtful questions. By asking questions, he could investigate the nine masks that we the men often wear. And the masks he mentioned were The Stoic mask, where we hide our emotions and show toughness, The Athlete mask, where we often carry our self-esteem by the time spent in the gym, believing that only an outstanding athlete is a good man. Material mask is where our self worth depends on our bank account. The sexual mask, where we put the number of women we slept with on a pedestal rather than how good the relationship was. The aggressive mask, where we constantly tell ourselves to not back down. The joker mask, where we nurture self-worth with sarcasm, cynicism, and find our superiority. The invincible mask, where we act like it’s all under control even when it’s not. The ‘’Know-It-All’’ mask, where we try or dominate intellectually, and project that we will never need help. Finally, the Alpha mask where we segregate men into either winners or losers, the Alphas or Betas.
And Lewis did great by providing insights and consequences into each mask with the help of real-life experiences, from the genuine conversations he had with people, friends, and mentors. The fact that he could come with examples either from his past or from his friends was top-notch. He really digged deep. The whole listening experience was outstanding. For me, it was nothing different to listening to a spiritual guru preach. In fact, it’s more effective as it’s coming from the current real-life experiences. Overall, it is encouraging, educative, and moving, to be honest.
Conclusion
I did not choose the book mask of masculinity by accident. As someone who hosts a podcast, creates content for good, it’s my job to either become a resource or to provide something value to my listeners. With 85% of our podcast listeners being men under 35, I thought it’s important and helpful to bring this book into the conversation. Even if you are a woman, I still recommend this book as it has the potential to help you understand the men in your life better, forever.
For me, a perfect man is not something that truly exists. However, I think that we all need to realize that asking for help, being kind, showing emotions, nurturing relationships, is a few better things we can dream and do for the rest of our lives. Personally, this book is really special to me because it helped me to introspect myself throughout these masks, the situations, the beliefs, not in a judgemental way but with a caring perspective. My firm belief is that introspection should lead us to do more, and this book delivers that by educating about the situations all men face. Overall, the book gives you a humbling experience and I will definitely recommend you to read it.
