There is a lack of good, healthy masculine role models in our society. Positive masculine images are few and far between.

I would say that, well, in my experience, first of all, identifying the elements of masculinity that I find to be most effective with women—I actually discovered them by looking at my experience with other men.

I looked at: When did masculinity from other men impact me in a really good way?

When did it make me feel safe?
When did it make me feel relaxed?
When did it make me feel inspired?
When did it give me a sense of romantic adventure, to go out and do something together?

And I didn’t have one man that I could think of in my life to do that. I had to think about dozens of men throughout my life in literally different countries around the world. And I said, “Oh, well, that man was good at that, and that man was really good at this. And this man said that we can go ahead and just do it, and we don’t have to worry about it.”

And this other man, you know, really gave a good example of holding himself accountable when he needed to exercise discipline.

So I feel that we can’t necessarily expect one role model to encompass all of the masculine traits that we want. We have to listen to ourselves and go: “When we’re having an experience from a masculine person, recognize it—ah, that felt really good. What was that? How can I emulate that? How can I embody that in myself?”

And really, we’re going to have to just pick and choose from a lot of different places—just the little, you know, the little grains of gold buried in all the sand. We have to take those and apply them where we find them.