A companion to Don't Be a Soft Cock
How to Be
a Man
30 steps in 30 days.
The first book was yarns. This one is the days after.
I want other men to spend a month doing one thing a day, on purpose, instead of sliding back into the version of themselves they can already do in their sleep.
What is in it
One thing a day. Then a sheet on the wall.
Read the day's page in the morning, or in the car before you go in. Do the thing. Do not add three more to feel thorough. Thorough is how we avoid the one that counts.
If you miss a day, you do not start the month again. You do the day you are on. The last pages are the thirty rules on one sheet. Print it. Pin it where you fill the kettle.
- Show up. Do what you said. Come through the door like you live there.
- Give it twenty minutes. Keep your hands off the fix. Say it once.
- Leave the cheap joke. Pay what you owe. Do the job in front of you.
- Put the phone down. Ask one question and wait. Eat at the table.
- Twenty more after that, then a last word.
A page from the book
Day 1. Show up
Day 1
Show up
A lot of men think showing up means being in the building.
It does not. Being in the building is attendance. Showing up is arriving as the man the room was promised, not as the leftover of a day you have not put down yet.
I have been at a job at seven and still not shown up until smoko, because I brought yesterday in with me and spent the morning making other people carry it.
Today you pick one place you already said you would be. Work. School gate. The table. The shed you told a mate you would help in. You go there on time, and you go there as if that was the plan all along.
The rest of the day is in the book. So are twenty-nine others.
The thirty
The month
One a day. The sheet at the back is the same list without the talk.
- 01 Show up
- 02 Do what you said
- 03 Come through the door like you live there
- 04 Give it twenty minutes
- 05 Keep your hands off the fix
- 06 Say it once
- 07 Leave the cheap joke
- 08 Pay what you owe
- 09 Do the job in front of you
- 10 Put the phone down
- 11 Ask one question and wait
- 12 Eat at the table
- 13 Be where the kid is
- 14 Don't win smoko
- 15 Ring the mate while he's still here
- 16 Sleep
- 17 Don't drive angry
- 18 Apologise without a speech
- 19 Keep one Saturday
- 20 Stop collecting proof
- 21 Carry the bag
- 22 Talk to the young bloke properly
- 23 Don't outsource your mood
- 24 Stay for the boring bit
- 25 Put the tools back
- 26 Don't make her translate you
- 27 Drink like Friday is not a personality
- 28 Tell the truth about the money
- 29 Be the same man in three rooms
- 30 Start again tomorrow
If you want a morning routine and a sunrise
There are better rooms for that. This is one thing a day in the rooms you already live in.
If you still give a shit
Then take the book. I am not signing you up to a program. I am trying to get thirty days into the hands of men who have not yet decided that getting worse is the same as getting honest.
The first book
Don't Be a Soft Cock
That one was yarns. Sites, sheds, FIFO, kitchens. Why the strongest blokes I know aren't the loudest ones.
This book is the month after. You do not need the first one to do the thirty. If you want the stories that sat behind the rules, they are here.
Daz Brennan
Grew up in Corio, Geelong. Left school at the end of Year 11 for a carpentry apprenticeship because sitting still in a classroom made him angry and standing on a frame did not.
Thirty years on the tools after that — crews, slabs, a FIFO stretch in the Pilbara — and he still works. Melbourne since 2001. Seventeen years with Michelle. Daughter Ella, sixteen. Son Jack, thirteen.
How to Be a Man is the second book. The first was Don't Be a Soft Cock. If either of them sells he will still be at work on Monday.
Both books
The yarns and the thirty days.
Don't Be a Soft Cock is the stories. How to Be a Man is the month after. If you want both, they are A$29 together.
Twenty-four dollars. That is the book.
Thirty days. One thing a day. A sheet you can pin by the kettle.
I just want you to do the thirty.