One phenomenal occurrence that takes place within the human living experience is that each individual goes through their life in a way that is unique to them and the interpretation of our personal experiences and internalization of them are largely what shapes the way that we operate in the world.

It’s has been observed how two people can have the same upbringing as siblings who grew up under the same roof, who are the same gender and be close in age and yet they can take two completely different directions in life.

Highly celebrated athletes for example often attribute their discipline and competitiveness to growing up in a house full of siblings where they didn’t have much growing up and would also often have to vie for the attention of their parents and when coupled with being humiliated by peers from school and the neighborhood who were much more well to do – that gave them a  chip on their shoulder to get recognized as a high achiever and they found the field of athletics as a means through which they could express those desires.  Meanwhile another of their siblings may be the complete opposite and found themselves more drawn to a conservative career path and live a mostly quiet and private life.

But what is wonderful about this dynamic of interpreting life’s experiences and cultivating knowledge through individual observation is that each of us grows up and matures as adults and operate in life with certain advantageous qualities and perspectives that can elevate us in life.   

In my household growing up, I had my parents and my younger brother.  I mentioned in one of my articles: Why Black Men Must Stop Seeking Approval of Women how I always admired my brothers bravery.  My brother would never let anyone take advantage of him or pick on him and was quick to physically defend himself no matter who it was against, while I on the other hand would consider myself more of a punk in my childhood, often times trying to avoid conflict and lay low even when it would have been beneficial to the cultivation of my self-image to be more verbally or physically aggressive against people who constituted themselves as my enemy. Yet I always admired this quality within my brother of not allowing anyone to try him and I look at his degree of fearlessness as part of the brand of his personality.  This manifested itself further into his adulthood as he at the age of 18 took an adventure of moving to South America alone and 16 years later and counting as of this writing, he ended up making a life out of it. 

With my father, I learned dozens of key principles about life and manhood but the two main ones that stand out the most to me are his lessons in entrepreneurship and in establishing mutual respect with other men – in particular.  Through his entrepreneurial lessons, I learned the importance of having a host of skills that when met with a hard work ethic can provide me with a chance to be successful through my own enterprising endeavors.  I’ve seen my father mainly as a proprietor have every type of operation – from restaurants to a home improvement business to retailing and more: many times stretching himself thin across his work where his operations couldn’t often keep up with the speed of his ideas. Nonetheless, he  repeatedly has shown me examples of what vision, confidence, knowledge of people and being a student of industry can do for you.

When it comes to respect, he has shown me the importance of being well-respected by other men by first being respectful to other men. For those who have gotten to any level of acquaintanceship with my father whether they agree with his intolerances or not, they usually accept his disposition about the importance of established mutual respect mostly from knowing that he will stand his ground in solace regardless of the consequences.  My father for as long as I have known him has always esteemed himself as an establishment. 

When you look around at other Black men who are your peers: are their traits and qualities that you have observed in them that you have an appreciation for? 

For some brothers, we admire even if from afar whether it’s in person or online certain attributes that they possess such as their hard work ethic, their strong mind which is not easily influenced, their creativity, their resiliency to never give up despite life’s obstacles, their ability to organize and disseminate information, their confidence with women, their technical and mechanical skills, their discipline around fitness and nutrition, their ability to get along well with others, their ability to stand alone in their beliefs even when ridiculed, their persistence, their ambition, their courage, their wisdom, their ability to have a sense of duty towards causes, their ability to remain level-headed during chaos, their responsibleness, their ability to keep a sense of humor during hard times, their ability to hold well-rounded conversations on a variety of topics, their attention to detail, their self-control, their humbleness and also their pride.

All of these are the gifts in Black men and we have a treasure chest among us to tackle head on any situation in life by adopting the outlook, that state of mind and the behaviors of all of our brothers.  We can begin to reassemble ourselves through our associations with other Black men by adopting their admirable positives and connecting them to our already existing wonderful features that we possess and take the shift or the big leap into a new and improved us.

Written By: Waymon Brown. Creator of theesquireproject.com. Email info@theesquireproject.com