10 Things Men Can Learn from Women

The other day I was talking to my friend Alyssa, from Home.Sewn, about her blog posts regarding female empowerment and I mentioned that women who make an effort to improve themselves inspire me to also improve myself!  I wanted to dig deeper into this thing called “girl power” so I could see what things us men might benefit learning from the opposite sex, that’s you: ladies!  So after putting my ego aside and complaining about how hard this was to do, I’ve compiled a list of 10 things that I have personally learned from women and what I think other men could benefit learning from women as well.

[DISCLAIMER: I am in no way, shape, or form implying that men cannot learn these things from other men, that women cannot learn these things from other women or men, or even that these are the only things that men can learn from women. These are just ten things that I think men might just be better off learning from women for their own self-improvement journey. I believe that men and women are equal. If I didn’t, I probably wouldn’t have even considered assembling a co-ed soccer team in the first place. I’m just a man on a mission with a pen and an opinion.]

*Bites bullet*

Here we go:

• Organization – List making - just plain and simple.  I’ve heard some women claim to go through the “mental checklist” before they fall asleep in bed.  My head is a cluttered place… even the thought of a mental checklist seems like something that belongs in the next level.
• Taking Pride in Appearance – Men have been on the recent trend of taking pride of their appearance for approximately the past 10 years.  Women have been caring about their appearance since the beginning of time it appears.  If women take extra measures to look and smell good then so should we!
• Etiquette – Learning from my mother, who taught me that manners were carried forward to the dinner table.  I can still hear her voice in the back of my head…  “Wait for everyone to be seated before eating!  Don’t slurp!  Sit up straight!  Did you excuse yourself before leaving the table?”…  This taught me to be respectful to those who prepared the meal and also to not eat like a savage.  I wouldn’t say I follow those rules to the tee, but I do conduct my own healthy variation of dining in style!
• Discipline – Hair growth… that shit takes a while.  I’ve been growing out my hair for well over a year now and boy does it take some mad discipline.  I’ve been tempted to get a haircut almost every day whenever I look down at my shower drain.  But through discipline I can endure the lows to celebrate the highs and ultimately persevere – in this case it’s healthy longer hair! Unrelated but if you want to see how I style my hair, click here.
• Multitasking – Most women I know are crazy good at doing multiple things at the same time.  There’s no better embodiment of this than a single mom trying to balance her life as she juggles her kids.  When it comes to accomplishing small tasks, I struggle with switching and completing them.  I have to do one thing, then finish it, and afterwards move on to the next.
• Learning – Women are incredible learners.  I’ve always wondered why all the guys at school typically got lower grades than the girls – except for math class ;) jab, jab, right hook.  Whatever it is that women are doing to get better grades, sign me up because I want in. P.S. It always pays off to read the instructions first.
• Active Listening – I have a small tendency to space out during a conversation but at least I’ve been awake enough to notice how well women actually listen during one!  I’ve been making more of an effort lately to stay focused and absorb as much as I can like a sponge because I can actually contribute to what’s been said and make a better connection with the person whom I’m engaging.
• Intuition – I’ll never forget what my Grade 7 French teacher said to the class about indecision when it comes to test-taking: “Go with your gut feeling.”  It’s that simple.  Follow your moral compass and just do what feels right to you.
• Emotional Expression – Women are emotional beings who aren’t afraid to show how they’re feeling.  It bothers me when men are considered “weak” or are mocked for showing their emotions.  It’s okay to smile when you’re happy or cry when you’re sad.  Showing your emotions doesn’t make you less of a man – or woman for that matter.
• Meticulousness – Women’s attention to detail is impeccable – they can detect a hair out of place or a wrinkle that needs to be ironed out.  I feel like men are less likely to detect the micro-adjustments to turn good into great.  If you make every little inch perfect and then add them all up, then you might just get the difference between victory and defeat.

So yes, rather, quite #girlpower

Here is a link to the other part of our collaboration piece over on Alyssa’s blog about The Benefits of Being Around the Opposite Sex! Go check it out!  But for the sake of completion, I’ll give you a little preview as to what she has in store for you:

• Stress Management – “KEEPING YOUR FUCKING COOL WHEN THE WORLD IS ON FIRE AROUND YOU.”  Stressing about the past gets you nowhere – what’s done is done, now let’s start problem solving.
• Patience – “I have a hard time even waiting for my popcorn to cook.”  It’s important to understand some things just take time – Rome wasn’t built in a day after all (but if I’m perfectly honest – waiting for the next season of a show to come out is the absolute WORST).
• Elasticity – “Men can adapt to any environment.  It’s probably because they have less hair and do not have to worry about their mascara running, 99% of the time.”… HEY, I HAVE LONG HAIR TOO – but yeah it checks out…
• Judgement Control – “Girls can be really mean + judgemental.  Men know how to be decent humans towards each other, it’s admirable.”  ß THIS
• Time Management – “Personally, I’m always late.  Almost every woman that I know is.”
• Logical Reasoning – We’re BOTH going to just leave this one here…
• When to Relax – “Women can’t slow down.  It probably has something to do with that ‘mental checklist’…”
• Managing Emotions – “Women can definitely slip off of the deep end […] and most of the time there’s a dude friend somewhere keeping her in check.  It’s nice - probably saved a few lives + taken some.”

Well put Alyssa, that DEFINITELY wasn’t easy to write, so kudos!

I think that men and women can better coexist if we BOTH make an effort to understand each other.  What do you guys think?  Do you agree with our points? What would be on your list that we didn’t cover?  Comment below.

But as always guys – remember to stay casual!

- Casually Formal

P.S. Check out my new website staycasuallyformal.com for all my other content!

& in case you missed the link to Alyssa's sibling article at Home.Sewn, click here

How to Pull Yourself Up and Get Out of a Funk

Talk about being a hypocrite...

In the vlog I did where I went to Men's StyleCon 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr_2aOIJOTI - I said right before I left the hotel that I was "so motivated that I'm ready to give it more than just a month - people say that you're going to be motivated for only a month after this event - I think this is going to extend to 12 months easily, to next StyleCon" in 2018 (which is now known as MenFluential Conference). 

By "it" I meant work hard and do the daily grind. But since I haven't really done jack, I'll quietly eat those words now.

Here I am, only 11 days after the end of StyleCon and I'm finally willing to admit that I haven't been as on the ball as I previously said I would have been. I definitely know the reason why as well: BURNOUT. 

I had been running myself ragged ever since my last semester of undergrad started in January trying to keep up with school mixed with my business endeavours, content creating, trying to find a part time job and overthinking just about every single second of living as I attempt to not only survive but LIVE. 

However, this morning I was faced with a decision when I woke up. Go to my 8 AM class for Construction Management Finance or sleep in. I have classes at 8 AM consecutively from Tuesday - Thursday but Wednesday (today) morning is always particularly difficult to rise out of bed for me because I organize a coed soccer team with my friends that plays on Tuesday nights. Last night, the game started at 11 PM and ended at midnight - taking it longer than usual for me to fall asleep when I got home. My alarm was set for 6 AM but I kept hitting snooze until I found myself making a judgment call at 7 AM: either get my ass out of bed NOW or skip class entirely...

Which do you think I chose? 😉

Fast forward to 11 AM when I finally managed to drag my ass out of bed: I'm entirely (naturally) awake for the first time in 10 days and also inspired to go about my day! My planning rituals had gone by the waste side since I got back from StyleCon and so began the resurrection of my normal habits. Was I late to the party? Absolutely, but I sure as hell wasn't going to let that dampen my spirit. After all, better late than never. 

So I made it my mission to turn this day into a turning point and documented the list of things I did today to put things back into perspective. I will share them with you now in blog format.

Here are the 5 steps I took today to pull myself up and get out of a funk:

1. Get enough sleep and take a personal day too (if that's what it takes). 8 hours are minimum here - be sure to wake up naturally (without an alarm) as well.

2. Pull yourself up, literally. I did a set of 8 pull-ups on my Iron Gym Total Upper Body Workout Bar. It's important that you do something physically uplifting. If pull-ups aren't your thing, not to worry: a simple set of 10 push-ups will suffice! The point of this is NOT to build muscle or work out. It's just to add some physical symbolism for encouragement (but the micro workout also helps).

3. Make sure you leave the house, go outside, and connect with nature. Better yet, actually go somewhere where you can take action into turning things around. In my case, I left my house, took the subway to school, and then began writing this post. Fresh cold air really helps clarify my thought process.

4. Reflect on a good memory that can be recreated. For example, while I was on the subway I reflected on my killer soccer season I had in the summer, dreamed about the day I can go play soccer outside this summer and start to recreate those positive memories! This is important because it helps you remember what kind of awesome things you're capable of achieving.

5. Connect with a friend and talk about your struggles. Let him/her know how you're ACTUALLY feeling and what you're doing to take action to turn the corner. In the evening, I met with my friend Adrian over at https://modernskepticism.blogspot.ca and we had a nice chat that helped put things back into perspective after these past 10 days.

It's that simple guys! Follow my 5 actionable step guide to help pull you up and get you out of a funk. Then, hopefully you'll overcome the difficulties that you were having and with any additional luck, you'll not only turn the corner but cause that much needed figurative explosion behind you. 💣💣💣

But above all else, remember to stay casual!

- Michele

Why am I doing this?

For those that know me well (which is a good amount of the people here - I would assume), it may not come as a surprise to you that I've created a page about men's style. But for those that I do not know yet or perhaps know but haven't touched base with in a while, I want to give a little backstory. Ever since my "interesting" summer co-op experience in construction, I've been having my second thoughts about my career in the industry that I was otherwise CONVINCED my future would be in. The problem is that I care. I care way too much about the actual people behind the construction process compared to the actual building undergoing development. I would rather help people overcome their problems then help build an over-glorified shelter that should normally withstand the tests of time and brave the elements. 

So I'm taking my efforts elsewhere, to the men's style and personal development industry. Construction can be a back up after I graduate in April. I don't know where this journey will take me but I do know that I am more than capable of coming up with endless ideas until I find something (or multiple things) that works. So I'm taking to Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, my blog, and perhaps other social mediums in the future with the hopes of sharing my journey with the world to help us all become the best versions of ourselves that we can be. This is what I want to do and everyday I wake up feeling more passionate about my decision.

I ask you to be patient but also stay tuned. I started this on a whim in November as a hobby but in just 2 months, things have already exploded! So I'm off with a bang. I have ZERO experience in BUSINESS and/or FASHION, yet I've been able to secure a part time job selling custom accessories at shows across the GTA in 2017, picked up a brand ambassador opportunity from an accessory brand from the UK, and will be attending Men's StyleCon 2017 in February, which is a convention where fellow men's style and personal development content creators are assembling for a weekend of inspiration and networking. 

Is Casually Formal a business? No, but I want business to come of it sooner rather than later. I promise that I will stay authentic and give honest reviews of my content. If something sucks, I'm not going to promote it or even mention it, unless it's a video about how something sucks haha.

So that's why I'm doing this. I'm doing it for me and for you. For the gentlemen and gentlewomen out there. Thank you for putting up with me this far, but this is just the start of something great! Remember above all else to stay true to yourself, follow your passions, and enjoy this gift of life given to us.

And above all else...
Stay casual guys,

Michele.

On Self-Improvement: Balancing the person you’ve become with the person you want to be.

Since the summer of 2016, I’ve been having a bit of an internal dispute about the morals of self-improvement. How do I balance self-acceptance and self-actualization without entirely abandoning one for the other?

I’ve grown up with an overdose of insecurities. I’ve been worried about my height, my weight, my appearance, my personality, and how other people perceive me.

In this article, I will examine some of the changes I’ve gone through since adulthood (ages 18 to 23) and explain some of the changes I hope to go through over the next 5 years (ages 23 to 28). Today, I will finally tackle the over-drilled interview question: “Where do you see yourself in five years?” in an attempt to review the areas in my life that I think are in the most need of improvement. Afterward, I will compare my answers with a video I recently came across on YouTube by Ralph Smart that discusses “Becoming Your Greatest Version”. By doing this, I hope to understand the balance between accepting who I am compared to the person I aspire to become. So without further ado, I will begin.

10 horrible truths I was unaware of about myself when I was 18:

1. My visual appearance was terrible.
2. I forced myself to hate literacy.
3. I had zero confidence.
4. I thought multi-tasking would save me time.
5. I was disorganized.
6. I was narrow-minded.
7. I was afraid to try new things.
8. I thought I was better than everyone else.
9. I was ungrateful.
10. I was unhappy.

The following describes exactly when I realized these were problems and how I took action.

Issues With Appearance

I remember looking in the mirror when I was 19 and realized I had a patch of fur between my eyes. I walked to my local drugstore, swallowed my pride, walked into the make-up section (this was before manscaping took full flight), found a pair of tweezers, bought them, went home, and went to town on my unibrow.

I’ll happily say that a pair of tweezers was probably one of the best investments of my life.

In addition to poor grooming habits, my posture was terrible (hindered positive body language), I didn’t work out (I regularly felt tired, weak, and unhealthy), my clothes were baggy and I had no fashion sense (despite fully thinking I looked awesome in my clothes). When I was 21, I worked on my appearance one thing at a time and it helped me feel a lot more confident in my projection of self-image. The dangers with this can be vanity through constantly looking in the mirror, but once I began to trust that I look presentable, the amount of time I spent looking in the mirror decreased and I was able to feel confident about my appearance even if it wasn’t “perfect” by my standards.

Illegitimate Illiteracy

By electing to study engineering when I was 18, I had created a bias in my head that “math is always more important than reading and writing”.  It wasn’t until I realized how much I struggled to effectively communicate with people that I needed to make some amendments to my opinion regarding literacy. After an education change from engineering to construction transpired when I was 20, I started to build my literacy skills from scratch and actually began to enjoy the value of reading books, penmanship, and wandering through the book store every time I frequented a mall.

Recently, I find nothing more artistic than quality penmanship.

Seeing my words written on paper in my own unique way leaves me with a newfound appreciation of literacy as an art form.

No Confidence

Confidence is something that I began to develop once I began to accept my decisions and stick by them despite the repercussions. The first real ballsy move I made was taking a leave of absence from my summer job for the sole reason of wanting to visit my hometown in Italy when I was 21. I didn’t know what would come of the trip but I trusted myself that I would make it worth my while.

Would it have been smarter to save for college when I needed the money? Probably, but I didn’t care.

I needed to do something for myself as a break from work and this was unknowingly the first step to developing some form of confidence. For the first time I believed that by choosing something that brought me happiness over something that brought me misery, then the rest would figure itself out. The road of confidence is still long, but there’s no looking back once I make up my mind about something now, even if the outcome is not as desired.

Multi-tasking

I had this notion that accomplishing multiple things at the same time would make me more efficient in my day-to-day life. Some people can pull this off fantastically, but I’ve tried and tested it for myself to no avail. Sadly, this is one of my more recent realizations because I only stopped doing it about 2 months ago, at the age of 23. I’m a very busy person and I have a tendency to overcomplicate my life by agreeing to do a lot of things.

I mean it’s always a great idea to play varsity soccer, be in school, work 2 days a week, play on three recreational teams, hang out with friends, write a blog, learn to play guitar, catch my shows on Netflix, chase girls, all while trying to work out, eat healthy, and get enough sleep.

Naturally, I took on too much so I started to cut each and every item out of that sentence until it read:

“I mean it’s always a great idea to be in school while trying to get enough sleep.”

I picked one thing (school), paired it with the obvious sleep necessity, and rolled with the punches because I couldn’t handle focussing on more than one thing without compromising priority number one (graduating in April 2017). I dug myself such a grave in school, that had to cut everything that I love doing out of my life just to scrape by. I managed to salvage my grades but only after I quit multi-tasking and just focussed on one thing at a time.

Disorganization

Refer to the above paragraph about multi-tasking.

It took a good deal of organization for me to sort out my priorities and effectively pull off the great escape of Semester 7.

I set a schedule for myself, created a functioning calendar, resorted to alarms for pretty much everything, and created a morning routine that allowed me to accomplish the basic necessities of hygiene in a short amount of time. It took me longer than I’m willing to admit, 23 years, to break that bad habit.

Narrow-mindedness

This was something I did not realize I had until I was 21, during my solo trip in Italy. Being on my own for a few weeks gave me time to really be my own person through the most natural of means. I was surrounded by nature while staying in a tiny town in the Apennine Mountains of Italy. I did not have an active phone I could use to connect with my friends that lived in the area. I’d have to walk for half an hour to the nearest espresso bar for Wi-Fi (which had a shoddy connection at best). My social interactions were reserved to showing up at said bar around 7pm and letting the night unfold along with whomever of my friends showed up at the bar. Everything started to slow down and it was beautiful. I began to connect with nature for the first time in a while.

I felt one with the flow of the water down the mountain, the bugs in the middle of the street, the sun that beat down on me, the wind blowing scents of mountain freshness and/or baked bread of the lady down the street.

My thoughts began to clarify, my worries began to dissipate, my appetite began to crave the nutrients of the mountain, and my eyes began to open up to the world around me. Everything was beautiful no matter how dreary it would seem. I was fascinated by rain, fog, and the cold. From the deepest depths of the forests to the peaks of the mountaintops, the spectrum of possibilities of my life opened up in the form of the valley in front of me.

Neophobia

Neophobia is defined as “the fear of trying new things”. Prior to visiting the mountains of Italy in 2014, I was only open to familiarity. I clung to familiarity because it was safe. I could predict what I was going to get out my daily experiences. I cracked my neophobia when I was thrust into a new environment and was forced to go about things differently. I had to try new things, meet new people, and eat new foods if I was going to adapt to my environment.

Condescension

I had a desire to be the best. There’s nothing wrong with striving to be better, until I realized that I didn’t have the desire to be the best version of myself, but rather that I had the desire to be better than others. I don’t even know what I was trying to prove by desiring to be better than my friends, peers, teammates, and family. Regardless, I felt this pressure that I had to prove something to them. I had to show them that I was of value. I had to perform to certain expectations or standards set out by whom? What I had failed to realize until I was 22, was that I was of value.

In fact, I was of infinite value just like everyone else because we are all equal.

We are all human beings. When I stopped judging myself so harshly, it became so much easier to love myself but also to love others because I had stopped judging everyone else so harshly as well.

Ungratefulness

I thought that I had an appreciation for the hard work put in by my parents throughout their lives as they earned a living to raise my sister and me. That mindset changed when I stepped into a working environment for the first time at 19. To this day, I am thankful for the opportunities given to me by my first job.

The lessons I learned about hard work and the struggles to make it through the day on a construction site turned out to be paramount for my personal development.

I began to understand how hard my parents had worked in order for to afford a roof over my head and food for the table. In addition, I am lucky to have worked with some incredible people who mentored me and watched out for my safety when they could have just let me figure things out the hard way. If not for those summers on the construction site, I would probably still be that scrawny 115lb kid instead of the significantly healthier 145lb man I am today.

Unhappiness

I did not realize how unhappy I was until I look at this attempt at a smile in the photo taken of me at my 18^th birthday. I see a lot of things when I look at this photo but what pains me the most is that I couldn’t even muster a real smile on my 18^th birthday. I’ve been through a lot ever since but I’d definitely consider myself to be a lot happier than I was at that age.

I wonder what my life would be like right now at 23 if I could go back in time and slap some sense into 18 year old me…

But if I hadn’t lived through the experiences I do not think I would be in the position to see all the growth I’ve made on this journey I’m on.

Time to Dive Deeper

In a YouTube video I watched recently entitled “10 Signs You’re Becoming Your Greatest Version” by Ralph Smart from his channel “Infinite Waters (Diving Deep)” (see the link below), Ralph discusses some of the signs he’s witnessed along his own journey to become his best version. They are as follows (quoted directly and/or paraphrased):

"10 Signs You're Becoming Your Greatest Version"

1. Our vision becomes clearer – Realizing there is something wrong because you are miserable, anxious, and/or depressed.
2. We reconnect back to nature – “We begin to gravitate towards more natural environments”.
3.  “We become more open to new possibilities – Diving deeper into books, questioning everything critically, e.g. how is this serving me right now?”
4. “Not judging ourselves as much as we used to when we look in the mirror – If you do not embrace yourself, you will abandon yourself.”
5. “Health goes at the forefront – We need the most optimum fuel. You don’t put milk in a Ferrari.”
6. “We need deeper intimate connections – We need to connect with our partners on a heart level”.
7. “Our thoughts and words have power – We are the architects of our own reality. What we think and say about ourselves shape who we are.”
8. We become resilient.
9. “We become fearless – This is done through taking risks”.
10. “The contribution” – the desire to give back to the world by the means of which we know how. “How can you help the world without helping yourself?”

Taking into account what Ralph has said, I find many of his points relatable to my own personal journey so far. Reflecting back on the last 5 years make me wonder what advice I’ll have for myself 5 years from now. So here is my own current rendition of “10 Signs You’re Becoming Your Greatest Version”. In other words, by the time I turn 28, here are some of the things that I need to work on.

10 Things I think 28 year-old me would tell present 23 year-old me:

1. Stop interrupting people in conversations and actively listen.
2. Be early (on-time) for everything.
3. Be concise (apparently 4 pages of text isn’t enough for me so far).
4. Don’t overthink things.
5. Do what you love.
6. Express how you truly feel to others.
7. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
8. Stick to your guns/fight for what you believe to be true.
9. Take your own “good advice” that you give to others.
10. Live in the moment.

So, to answer the question at the beginning of the article:

“How do I balance the person I’ve become with the person I want to be?”

In order to even be able to discuss the topic of self-improvement, I had to experience it at some level. That’s the beauty of analyzing my first five years of adulthood. I can analyze the person that I’ve become because I have actual experiences to measure up against. I am going to pile up all those experiences as if they were construction components and build a tower. I will call this tower “Tower 23”. Not far across the way, 28 year-old me already built “Tower 28” with his experiences from 23 to 28. In order for 23 year-old me to meet 28 year-old me at the top of “Tower 28”, I will cross an imaginary tight rope strung between the two towers. In order to keep my balance, I have to focus on the tasks at hand by staying present to make sure that I don’t fall. When I stop for a second to look ahead, I see the person that I want to be and when I start to move again, I slowly shift the weight of the man I’ve become. If yesterday shapes who I am and tomorrow defines my destination, then focusing on today will keep me balanced and get me where I need to go.

- M.B.