Living by high standards and excellent actions doesn’t happen by mistake.
It happens when a man approaches life a certain way and plays by certain rules.
Here are the key traits of men who live with authenticity and integrity.
1) Grit
Men of integrity and authenticity have grit.
They are tough.
When time gets tough they step up every time, and when everybody else has already gone home or given up, they’re still working hard.
This kind of man doesn’t know the word quit.
He’s the glue that holds the world together and the kind of man who women seek out from a mile away.
It’s not his looks, it’s his grit.
2) Willpower
The next of the traits of men who live with authenticity and integrity is willpower.
Willpower is the ability to see a job through.
It’s the fire in the belly that turns a dream into reality.
It requires grit, as mentioned, and it also requires keeping the goal in mind.
The man of high value has willpower coming out of his ears.
He’s motivated as hell, and he puts that behind everything he does.
3) Bravery
There’s no substitute for bravery.
When life gets scary, real men rise to the surface and fake men scamper and hide.
If you’ve ever been in an emergency situation where one or two men stepped up and dealt with what was happening, then you know how rare bravery is.
Most people just want to protect their own life and survive.
But a man in the fullest sense is someone who’s willing to give his all for the protection of everyone around him, even if that means putting his own life at risk.
4) Honesty
Men who live with integrity and authenticity are honest.
They know that without honesty, they might as well just give up on being a decent guy.
If you want to be trusted and respected for who you are, and you want to live a life that’s genuinely trying your best, you need to be honest.
There’s no shortcut or option B on this one.
Dishonest men are not living with integrity, nor are they being honest to others or themselves.
5) Transparency
On a related note to honesty is transparency.
Every man who’s worth his salt doesn’t try to hide anything (except maybe his PIN code when at the ATM).
He’s transparent with romantic partners, business partners and those he befriends.
He doesn’t pretend to be anything he’s not, and he is willing to be honest about parts of his past which may be less than ideal.
He is who he is: take it or leave it.
6) Follow-through
Follow-through is a component of honesty and of willpower.
When you get a job done, you don’t just walk away. You come back and check on it.
Same goes for helping a person or fulfilling a promise that you’ve made.
Without follow-through and delivering on what you said, your words might as well be spit in the wind.
The same goes for following through and checking up on things you’ve put your time into:
A man who’s worth his salt knows that everything worth doing is worth doing well.
7) Courtesy
Men of integrity and with a genuine character are always courteous.
They’re the ones holding open the doors and upholding the modern code of chivalry.
Courtesy is also about speaking respectfully and being forthright in your dealings with others.
Men of integrity don’t have time to sneak around, cheat or treat people poorly.
They give respect and they expect it in return.
8) Faith
Faith is a crucial ingredient for any true man.
If we only relied on what our eyes can see, we’d all be blind.
A man of sincere intention and genuine value is a man who has faith.
Whether that is religious or spiritual faith, or whether that is a faith in the value of life and in doing good works, that is his business.
What you can be sure of is that a man who is worth his breeches has rock-solid confidence about what his eyes can’t see.
And it’s this confidence which grounds and informs all the things his eyes can see.
As CS Lewis said of his faith:
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
9) Supportiveness
His faith and grit allows the man of integrity to be supportive to others along their journey.
He loves nothing more than to lend a helping hand, because it shows him that he is useful and because he truly enjoys assisting.
The man of integrity wants to help, but he’s not selective about it.
His only real judge of whether to help or not is his own ability to provide help and how badly the other person needs it.
Looks, gender, money or station don’t come into it.
10) Loyalty
Lastly in terms of the top traits of men who live with authenticity and integrity is loyalty.
A man of high value who presents his real self to the world and acts with integrity has a simple request of those around him:
He requests that they do the same in return.
As such, he gives his full loyalty and expects the same in return.
The man of integrity tends to think through his decisions and be absolutely sure of them before going through with it.
He gives loyalty and he expects the same, but when you come across this man you’ll know that he’s not going to walk back on his word.
When he makes a deal he keeps that deal.
When he gets married, he stays married.
It’s about as simple as that.
The difference between living and living well
Every man has a basic decision to make in life:
Do the bare minimum to get by in life or rise to the occasion and do his best in every way possible.
There’s a big difference between living and living well.
When a man exhibits integrity and authenticity in what he does, he ascends into a higher league of standup men who everyone turns to and trusts.
He builds a life of excellence and trust in everything he does.
