Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Jeff More.

How many of us have watched the footage of recent disasters unfolding, wishing we could drop everything, pack our bags, and head down to Joplin/Haiti/Japan/Turkey to spend some time helping out with the recovery efforts?

Then reality sets in. You don’t know how to get there, where you would stay, and what you would do once you arrived. So you stay home, days pass, and that gnawing feeling of wanting to do something subsides. Besides, what could you have done anyway?

But it’s really not so outlandish an idea. If you’re tired of rationalizing away the desire to pitch in somehow, the good news is that it is very possible for us regular guys to get involved in disaster relief efforts. It simply requires some advance planning.

Find an Organization

The key thing to sort out is finding an organization to work with that would be a good fit for you. In my opinion, this is the toughest part, much more so than finding the time and money to go.

Where to look? If you are involved in some charitable or religious organization, I would start by asking around there. Chances are you know someone who knows someone. In my case, I have been a reservist for Hope Force International for four years and found out about them when my former roommate’s church was hosting a training session. Ask your friends who have served as missionaries or non-profit workers in developing countries, as these folks sometimes cross paths with relief organizations.

If you are not the religious type, fear not, as there are secular organizations involved in disaster response, oftentimes made up of professionals in certain fields, such as Doctors Without Borders, for example. Another is Team Rubicon, formed when its founder, Jake Wood, a USMC combat veteran, posted on his Facebook wall after the 2010 Haiti quake that he was assembling a team to head down there. If you are a veteran, I strongly encourage you to contact them. And if you find a faith-based organization that piques your interest, give them a call as some do not require you to be an adherent of their beliefs to be a member.

Disaster relief organizations are flooded with calls when the footage is piped into your television, but simply calling them up in the heat of the moment doesn’t mean you’ll get sent just like that. Before you go, many require you to go through a training session or at least several meetings to get everyone on the same sheet of music, as it were. Do your homework now during peacetime and get your ducks in a row.

Relevant Skills in a Disaster Zone

Sometimes there are only so many slots available immediately post-disaster until a logistical foothold of sorts can be established and the non-profits can bring in the just-as-motivated but lesser-skilled volunteers. Immediately following a natural disaster, hotels will be packed with newly-homeless residents and mission critical government personnel. To put it bluntly, you should be able to offer something to justify your consumption of limited resources.

Think ahead about the skills you wish you could have, or as Steve Kamb of Nerd Fitness put it in his fantastic article, How to Level Up in the Game of Life: Determine your Level 50, and take intermediate steps to build those skills.

For example, medical professionals such as nurses are often towards the top of the list to deploy if there are limited seats, so earlier this year I signed up for a Wilderness First Aid (WFA) course through the National Outdoor Leadership School to level up my healer skill tree. I would like to become Wilderness First Responder (WFR) certified eventually, but WFA is a respectable intermediate step.

If you have not spent a night away from the comfort of a soft, warm bed and have little/no outdoor skills to speak of, take up backpacking. It is a great way to learn self-reliance in a relaxed and recreational setting. Start building a bug-out-bag. If you can’t take care of yourself, how are you going to help someone else? Put your oxygen mask on first before assisting others.

Bryan Black of ITS Tactical has a great article and accompanying podcast on the Top Ten Tactical Skill-Sets for the Common Man, some of which are particularly useful in disaster areas. These skills take practice, but as the Japanese proverb goes, “Practice until it becomes boring, then practice until it becomes beautiful.”

All this said, don’t write yourself off if you don’t have any sweet skills. My intention is not to tread into “everyone gets a trophy for playing” territory, but you might have a card up your sleeve that will come in handy since unexpected needs have a tendency to arise in disaster areas. For example, your experience working in a clothing store at the mall will be very handy in sorting the flood of incoming clothing donations.

Awesome man-skills are great to have, but I would venture to say it is more important to be empathetic. If you are going to lecture someone that they are fools for living in a flood/wildfire/earthquake/tsunami-prone area in the first place, disaster response work probably isn’t for you. Don’t strut around thinking that that locals owe you anything because you came all the way to help them. They are grateful, but they might have too much on their plate at the moment to communicate it.

Be flexible and fluid, and don’t take things personally if someone snaps at you or says something that rubs you the wrong way while they’re under stress. It sounds like a small thing, and you may think you’d be above such pettiness, but trust me, it is different once you are in the field.

Even if you suck at the first skills that come to mind for this kind of work, such as construction (I am terrible at it and have only really done demolition work…apparently I am better at destroying than creating) the important thing is to be willing to work hard, work well with others, be adaptable, and most importantly, show up. I would rather have a noob with a heart on my team than a badass who has not a shred of empathy. Best case scenario, they will have both The Heart and the Fist (shameless plug for my favorite book of 2010).

Working Around the Roadblocks of Time and Money

Then there are the big issues of time and money, but they are not always the barriers we make them out to be. Don’t just glance at your checking account and vacation days saved up, think you don’t have enough, and tell yourself no without giving it an honest shot first. Being resourceful will tilt things in your favor.

Time

During Hurricane Katrina, I was a recent-ish college graduate and worked part-time which meant I only accrued vacation hours at a fraction of the rate my full-time coworkers did. Word got around of me soon going to New Orleans, and my coworkers, with no solicitation on my part, offered to donate their vacation hours to me in the event I did not have enough. People are more compassionate and generous than you might think—the important thing is to ask, but sometimes they will offer before you can!

Be honest with yourself. If you have the vacation hours but don’t want to give them up because you had your heart set on that Alaskan cruise or annual fishing trip with your buddies, no one is going to fault you for it. We are all in different places and life stages.

While you may imagine yourself jetting off to places like Haiti and Japan, much of relief work is domestic. There are many more logistical hurdles going internationally, such as the language barrier and waiting for foreign governments to give international aid workers the green light to operate. The less publicized (flooding in Vermont and Tennessee in 2011, hello?) operations still require able and willing volunteers.

So while you may not be getting any new stamps in your passport (you have one, don’t you?), domestic relief operations have the upside of being considerably more flexible; my two climbing buddies and I made our third trip to New Orleans the work week of a three day weekend. That’s just four vacation days spent for nine days in New Orleans.

Money

If money is a problem, try raising support. Social media is handy for getting the word out. With growing skepticism and distrust of large organizations, folks might be willing to donate money personally towards your airfare or gas, instead of texting $10 to a big name organization where they have no visibility of what their cash is being used for.

You could start simply by sending a letter soliciting financial support, similar to what Christian missionaries do. If you’re a gifted musician, put on a living room concert and tell folks the admission will be used to fund your trip. I have had airline rewards mileage donated to my teams. Maybe you know someone who works for a hotel chain that can hook you up with a discount. A friend of mine in Tennessee offered my team his daughter’s pickup truck to use to drive to Alabama in order to save us from renting a vehicle. At the very least, you could make a savings goal in your savings account to automatically chip in a little bit at a time every time you get a paycheck.

If you’re waiting for the planets to align, chances are you’ll never get anywhere. Be creative, hustle, and put yourself out there. Folks want to be involved in good causes and are often willing to support you. Hint: people generally respond with the vibe you give out, so hopefully you are a charitable person to begin with.

What to Do Until Your Callout

Hopefully in a few months you will be all signed on as a reservist with an organization you feel confident deploying with. What to do in the meantime? Serve locally.

Some folks I know stay up with their construction skills by going on home-building trips across the Mexican border. Food banks will give you experience serving the masses in a volunteer-run kitchen—you might not see them on the news, but food service is a sizeable part of what volunteers do in disaster areas. Any way to hone your skill-sets for your next disaster relief deployment and serve the less fortunate around you at the same time is a win-win as far as I’m concerned.

If you serve or have served with an organization that conducts disaster relief, please let us know your experiences as to help others with their search. I would personally love to hear your stories as well.

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Jeff More works and resides in Los Angeles, where the four seasons are mudslides, earthquakes, riots, and wildfires. He is an avid shooter of both firearms and camera, and celebrates his American heritage by playing the 5-string banjo. Check out his website at www.skunkabilly.com.

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I love old-time radios. They’re sturdy and good-looking. And there’s a reason for that. Back in the day appliances were considered pieces of home furniture, so a lot of thought and care went into their design. People wanted something that not only played Glenn Miller, but that also went well with their home’s traditional decor. The result was marvelous pieces of technology encased in handsome wood and fabric.

A few months ago, I inherited my grandpa’s old 1940s Philco radio. It’s positively manly looking. It had a few dings in the wood, but it looked fantastic sitting on my desk. It still worked, but only played AM radio. I thought it was a shame that it didn’t get much use except as decoration. So I had a thought.

“Would it be possible to mod my radio so that I could play music from my iPod on it?”

To answer my question, I called up my electrical engineer brother-in-law, Ryan Davis. His response? “Of course!”

My grandpa's old Philco modded so I can use my iPhone with it.

I headed over to his electrical engineering laboratory in his house with my radio in tow, and he fixed me up. Now I have an audio device with 1940s charm and 21st century technology.

I figured a lot of AoM readers would want something similar in their home or office, so I asked Ryan if he’d help me create a tutorial so you all could make your own mp3-playing old-time radio too. Ryan was happy to oblige.

Two Ways of Modding: The Easy Way and the Hard Way

There are two ways you can go about modding an old radio so you can connect your iPod to it. One approach is to add an audio input right into the old tube amplifier. This mod is nice because your iPod music gets that warm, vintage tube amp sound, and you can still maintain your radio’s radio capability. This is how Ryan modded my grandpa’s old Philco radio.

The problem with this approach is that it’s really difficult to do for the average Joe. First, you have to find a radio that still has a working tube amp, which can be hard and makes the radio more expensive. You can find plenty of radios with working speakers, just not a working tube amplifier.

Second, you have to do some complex rewiring on the radio to add the audio input. Your first step is to find the radio’s electrical schematic online. That’s the easy part. There’s a great site that has all the schematics for old-time radios. The hard part is knowing how to read the schematic so you know where to add a new audio input. This takes some skill and know-how. When Ryan worked on my grandpa’s radio, he tried explaining what we needed to do to make the change. It went completely over my head. Of course, I acted like I knew exactly what he was talking about (“Oh, yeah. Of course you need to put a new transistor in the flux capacitor. It’s so obvious…”).

With that said, if there’s enough interest in seeing how to mod an old radio into an iPod speaker this way, Ryan said he’d be happy to demonstrate how to do it in a future post.

The second approach is to bypass the existing tube amp altogether by adding a new, smaller, and more modern amplifier to the radio and connecting it to the radio’s existing speaker. This way is much easier because you don’t need to know how to read complicated electrical schematics.  You also don’t need a working radio. As long as your radio has a working speaker, you’re golden. You can even use a radio with a broken speaker. Just buy a new 2″ speaker for $4 and replace the old speaker in a snap.

Today, we’re showing you how to mod your old radio using the easy approach. It took Ryan and I less than 30 minutes to complete this project. If you’re new to electrical tinkering, it may take you a bit longer. But I’m not kidding when I say this: if you’ve never done any type of electrical projects, you can do this.  It’s the perfect weekend project to work on with the kiddos.

Ready to get started? Let’s do this!

Gather Supplies

An Old-time Radio

The most important part! The best place to get them are antique stores, flea markets, or yard sales. You can find them on eBay, but they’re WAY overpriced. Even broken radios on eBay go for about $60-70. And by broken I mean it doesn’t work, and it’s missing half of the wooden cabinet. I went to the local flea market last weekend and spotted several nice cathedral radios in great shape for $20-$30.

I picked up this old Farnsworth radio at a local antique store for about $30. The outside is in pretty good condition, but it doesn’t power up. That’s common with old radios, but it’s okay. The only part we need to work is the speaker.  Usually when old radios are burnt out, the speaker still works fine. So if you find a nice-looking vintage radio that doesn’t work, buy it. It will work for our project.

Important Note: Commenter J.W. Koebel brought to our attention that if you want to use the radio’s original speaker like we do in this project , the speaker needs to be a permanent magnet speaker. Radios from about the mid-1940s and on should have permanent magnet speakers. Earlier radios used electrodynamic speakers. Our amp won’t work with electrodynamic speakers.

How do you know if your old-time radio has permanent magnet speakers? Check the back of the speaker. If it has 2 or 3 wires going to the speaker, it’s a permanent magnet speaker.

If you decide to use an older radio that lacks a permanent magnet speaker, you can still do this project. You’ll just need to pull out that speaker and replace it with a permanent magnet speaker. It’s not difficult. Ryan sells a 2″ speaker on his site for $4. Pick one up when you buy the amp.

Amplifier

Ryan sells these on his site. Ryan used his electrical engineering skills and designed these amps specifically for vintage radio mods. They should work with most types of old radios. You can buy the amps pre-built for $26. Select “Pre-built kit” when you check out. If you’re feeling particularly handy, you can buy the kit and put the amp together yourself. The unassembled kit is $20. And of course if you’re super handy with electronics, you can experiment with designing your own amp.

12 Volt Power Supply

You might have one lying around the house. If not, pick one up at Radio Shack.

Soldering Iron

22 Gauge Copper Strand Wire

1/8″ (3.5 mm) Audio Cable

We’ll plug one end into our iPod or other audio source and the other end into our amplifier.

Mod Your Old-Time Radio

We have our supplies. Time to get to work. Keep in mind that every old-time radio is different. How this Farnsworth radio looks on the inside will be different from how your Philco or Zenith looks on the inside. However, all old radios pretty much work the same way, so the steps below should work for your radio. Just know that you may need to use your noodle a bit to find the analogous parts on your radio.

Remove Radio From Cabinet

Unscrew the back and remove.

There's the radio. We're going to be taking that out so we can do some modding.

The radio is screwed into the bottom of the wood cabinet. So we need to remove all those screws to remove the radio.

We also need to remove the knobs to slide the radio out.

Alright. Remove the radio. You might have a bunch of crud inside your radio and among the parts. Just clean it up as best you can.

Tuner, speaker, tube amp. Let's get to work modding this bad boy.

Disconnect Old Wire Speakers

Disconnect the old speaker wires from the speaker's solder terminals. Here they are on our radio.

Use your soldering iron to disconnect the old wire from the speaker's soldering terminals.

Connect New Speaker Wire

Get your new wire ready.

Strip back a bit of the insulation and put some solder on the new wire so it's ready to be connected to the speaker.

Connect the new wire to the speaker soldering terminal. Here's Ryan connecting the first new line of wire to the speaker. After you solder the wire to the speaker input, cut it so it's long enough to reach the side of the radio cabinet.

Now for the second wire. Strip back the insulation a bit. Add some solder to the end.

Soldering second wire to second speaker solder terminal. After you've connected the new wire, cut it so it's long enough to reach the side of the inside of the cabinet. We're not connecting any wire to that middle solder terminal. It doesn't do anything. We're done adding new speaker wires.

Remove Capacitor From Potentiometer

We want to be able to control the volume with the radio’s volume knob. To do that we need to run some new wire from the volume knob to the new amp. Here’s how to do it.

Find the volume knob on the radio. Look behind it. See that black round thing? That right there is called a potentiometer, or pot for short. It controls the volume. See that orange thing sticking out from the pot? That's a capacitor. We need to remove that so we can connect some new wire for our new amp.

Use your soldering iron to remove the capacitor from the pot. Here's what the pot looks like sans capacitor.

Add New Volume Wire to Volume Knob (or Pot)

See those three soldering terminals on the pot? That's where we're going to connect the new wire.

Take some new wire, pull back the insulation a bit, and add some solder to it.

Add new wire to each of the three solder terminals.

Finished adding new wires to pot soldering terminals. A beautiful sight. Remember to cut each wire so it's long enough to reach the inside side of the radio cabinet.

Ryan suggests making the middle wire a little longer than the other two. When we connect the wires into the amp, we need to make sure the wire from the middle soldering terminal on the pot connects with the middle screw terminal on the amp. Making the middle wire longer than the other two wires makes it easier to figure out which wire is the middle wire.

We threaded the volume wires through a hole we found in the tube amplifier so we could make it to the new amp. Keeps things tidy.

Connect Wires to New Amp

Find the pot screw terminal on the amp. It's the little black thing with three holes in it and three screws on top. Connect the middle wire from the pot to the middle screw terminal on the amp, like so.

Connect the other two wires from the pot into the two outside screw terminals on the amp.

When you test out your radio, if you notice that the volume gets softer when you turn it up, you need to switch the two outside wires in the pot terminals on the amp. No biggie. Just unscrew them, make the switch, and screw down the wires again.

Connect the speaker wires into the speaker amp terminal. It doesn't matter which wire goes into which terminal. All the wires are connected! We're almost done!

Re-assemble Radio

Put the radio back into cabinet. Make sure to put the knobs back on.

Put the screws back in the bottom.

Mount Amp Inside Radio Cabinet

Sticky tape is your friend.

Put some sticky tape on the back of the amp.

Mount the amp on the inside of the cabinet.

Plug-in Your Power Cable and Audio Source and Play!

Plug-in your power and audio cable.

Enjoy having your modern music play from an old-time radio!

Here’s a video of our old-time radio in action:

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This week our publisher informed us that while they were originally going to release our new book, Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice for the Modern Man, in mid-September, they’ve decided to move the launch until around October 28th in order to coincide with some promotions they’ll be running with Barnes and Noble and Amazon at that time. We’re both really bummer and quite happy about this delay. Happy because the promotions will mean that more people will hopefully discover the book. Really bummed because we had been truly counting down the days until September, as we’ve been beyond excited to share this book with you guys. I guess this will just build the suspense for a couple more months. We don’t have any control over these decisions, so we appreciate your patience and support.

You can pre-order the book now, and you can read excerpts of it at the official Manvotionals site.

We’ve already received advance copies of the book–and it’s really sweet! During October, we’ll be giving away one advance copy of the book every week until the launch on our side blog, The Trunk. So be sure to check in regularly for a chance to be the first guy on the block, nay, in your state or even your country to get your hands on one.

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TR: A Man of Action. A Man of Contemplation.

From time to time, readers will email me an article they’ve read that argues a point contrary to the message of the Art of Manliness and suggest that I respond to it. I have typically declined because I am of the idea that it’s better to act than to react and that the best thing to do is to keep on doing my thing, because the cream will simply rise to the top. And I don’t see the point in giving misguided opinions greater exposure.

But today I’d like to break that rule. Because a reader pointed out an article that addresses an issue I’ve seen pop up in comments here, and is something men might be wondering about. The article in question is entitled, “Male Identity,” and was published on Askmen.com. I don’t have a high opinion of that website–as I’ve stated before, those kinds of shallow men’s magazines are what prompted me to start the Art of Manliness in the first place. So the article itself really doesn’t warrant a response, but it will serve very well as an excellent jumping off point to explore an important issue.

The author, Ian Lang, begins the article by taking a swipe at the Art of Manliness, goes on to lament our culture’s preoccupation with being a man, and concludes by arguing that “real men” don’t worry about what it means to be a man.

There’s plenty to find fault with in the article from the author’s cherry picking of AoM articles, to his assertion that straight razor shaving is more expensive than using modern razors, to the irony of his criticism of male lifestyle websites on the biggest male lifestyle site on the web.

But today I just want to focus on these assertions:

“Finally, do you think your dad would enjoy lying in a field with you making daisy chains and contemplating what it means to be a man? No. He would tell you to work hard, that life doesn’t ever get easier and to stop being such a pussy.”

” To paraphrase perhaps the best teacher I ever had in school, you know you’re a man when you stop trying to prove that you are.”

“Real men don’t waste time worrying about it. Real men get on with their lives, whatever their lives may be…They don’t stop and ask what it means to be a man because they’re too busy being one for that kind of self-referential bullshit.”

Is Manhood Born or Made?

Lang’s argument is not uncommon—and should be expected from a generation that often eschews work and free choice in favor of a “born this way” ethic. But the assertion that a man just is only makes sense if you are ignorant of the historical record and/or believe that manhood is something that you exit the womb with or magically absorb through the ether as you grow up. Those who don’t come out of the womb endowed with manliness and a furry baby chest are thus lost causes.

But while you can be born genetically male, manliness is something that must be learned, earned, and proved.

While Lang paints the picture that our modern preoccupation with what it means to be a man and the desire to prove our manhood is a modern phenomenon, it’s actually a very ancient tradition. The desire to prove one’s manhood has been the driving force of males since our caveman days. And many of history’s greatest men not only pondered what it meant to be a man, but studied the question deeply throughout their lives. Teddy Roosevelt’s insecurity about and desire to prove his manhood is what drove him to preach the doctrine of the strenuous life and accomplish a lifetime of amazing feats.

Being preoccupied with what it means to be a man is not the aberration–the idea that men simply are and should just get on with it is the modern invention. It is a concept that flies in the face of thousands of years of tradition. In fact, I’d argue that Lang’s position–that real men don’t worry about what it means to be a man–is one of the biggest contributing factors to the sad state of many young Western men today.

Manliness Can Be Taught. And It Must Be.

“Anyone who has practiced what is good is ashamed to turn out badly. Manliness is teachable.” -Euripides, 423 BC

As we’ve highlighted countless times on the site, in almost every culture, in almost every time, societies have spent a great deal of time “worrying” about what it means to be a man. For thousands of years, men around the world had rites of passages that initiated them into manhood. Elders would take young men underneath their wings to ensure that they were properly taught how to perform the duties and responsibilities of a man. And once boys became men, maintaining their manhood was a lifelong preoccupation.

But in the past 50 years or so, we turned our back on that tradition. We stopped worrying about what it means to be a man. We no longer celebrate rites of passage into manhood. The books and speeches frequently given in times past on the topic of manliness and manhood have ceased. Mentors have disappeared. Society refuses to offer any concrete ideals of what it means to be a man lest we offend people and make others feel left out. So we let boys create their own idea of manhood and just expect them to figure out what it means to be a man on their own.

Without any clear guidance on what it means to be man, we shouldn’t be surprised that we have so many young men today coasting along in life stuck between adolescence and adulthood without any direction. That’s what you get when you don’t take the time to contemplate and study what it means to be a man.

One of the most important things that our ancestors understood, and we have forgotten, is that left to our own devices, humans will take the path of least resistance. Every time. In life we are constantly swimming against a great current–once we stop making an effort, the current pushes us downstream. Real life long-distance swimmers must consume a great deal of calories to fuel their progress. We too need fuel to drive our manliness–we must constantly be filling our tank with the best advice out there, writings from websites and books, advice from friends and family, to fuel our actions.

A Man of Contemplation, A Man of Action

It is truly a false dichotomy to say that “real men” don’t need to spend time thinking about manhood and that they should just get busy being men.

This is a very American idea of manliness, gleaned from cowboy and action movies–shoot first now and ask questions later. But if you’re a broader student of history and culture, you know that far from being mutually exclusive, contemplation and action go hand in hand.

Yes, a man should be a man of action. That is the end of his creation. But what is the means to that end? What kind of actions should he take? What is driving that action? What is the purpose of that action? What kinds of goals and priorities, values and morals should a man have? Contemplation is needed to answer these questions. Contemplation leads to right action.

No one would say to someone who wishes to be a scientist, “No need for studying–just get in the lab and do something!” The scientist must first study the basic principles of his field and then experiment, and then make discoveries. It is no different for manliness.

It is easy to point at our grandfathers and fathers, as Lang does, and say, “They were men and they didn’t worry about being men.” Sure, our grandfathers were men of action, but many had jobs that made them unhappy, were in unhappy marriages, didn’t know how to deal with the scars of war, and were distant and cold fathers. (And many were quite happy as well, of course!).

As far as our fathers go, many of the Baby Boomer generation worked too hard, got divorced, and failed to pass down the art of manliness to their sons. They didn’t take the time to think about what was truly important in life. How many men in our generation only wish their dad had spent some time with them “lying in a field with you making daisy chains and contemplating what it means to be a man.” Well, maybe not the daisy chain making part.

Neither action without contemplation, nor contemplation without action will get you very far in life. A man must learn to harness and balance each force.

Of course it also comes down to your definition of what constitutes “a real man.” It’s true that it doesn’t take much work to look at galleries upon galleries of hot babes of the week. But if you believe that being a man means living a life of virtue and excellence and reaching your full potential, then that won’t happen without a great deal of both study and effort.

This definition also means that studying and contemplating what it means to be a man does not necessarily mean reading only books specifically about manhood, although that can be beneficial. Rather it means engaging with works, both ancient and modern, and people that can teach you the virtues and practical skills you need to become the best man you can be. This covers a wide spectrum of subjects!

Is Manliness a Fad?

I do agree with Lang on a few things, mainly that the glut of hand-wringing articles about what is wrong with men is getting beyond tiresome and the commodification of manliness, and the resulting spate of man-focused products is unfortunate. We did just fine before the advent of bodywash designed just for us.

But the real danger in this resurgence of interest in manliness is not that it’s making men wimpy as Lang argues–quite the opposite as we’ve just discussed. Rather, the danger is that manliness will come to be seen as just another passing trend, like metrosexuality. There are books and tv shows coming out on the theme, endless newspaper and magazine articles, and social commentary galore. I fear that people will get tired of all the media attention, which will prompt a backlash, and an inevitable swing back in the other direction, back to where men don’t give a damn about being the best men they can be.

The return to true manliness advocated by AoM is not a trend or a fad, it is an effort to close the gap created during the past few decades and once again grasp the ancient tradition of manhood. One in which men contemplated what it meant to be a man and took action to attain that ideal.

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When I was brainstorming what would become the Art of Manliness back in 2008, I wanted an image that would be the site’s calling card, an image that people would see and automatically think “Hey, that’s the Art of Manliness.” I wanted it to be sort of old-school, so I scoured tons of old ephemera (magazines, pamphlets, etc) from the past 150 years to find something that fit. After hours of searching, I found what I was looking for.

It was a picture of famous 19th century bare knuckle boxer John L. Sullivan striking a manly fisticuffer pose while sporting an awesome handlebar mustache. I slapped him in the header to serve as the virile and rugged balance to the well-mannered gentleman on the other side. Together they form the two aspects of manliness we talk about on AoM.

Show Off Your Art of Manliness Pride: The AoM Pose Contest

Are you an Art of Manliness man? Are you a guy who’s dedicated to bringing back real manliness and making the corner of your world a little manlier each day? We want you to show off your Art of Manliness pride by taking a picture of yourself striking your best AoM pose.

See John L? That boxer guy at the top of the site?  See how he has his two fists up?

We’ll call it the “AoM Pose” for brevity’s sake. Any person who assumes this pose will feel 100 times manlier. Go ahead–try it!

Did you feel the testosterone course through your body? Of course you did.

Are you feeling inspired now? Good. Here’s how you can enter this contest.

Step 1. Join the Art of Manliness Community.

Step 2. Take a picture of yourself striking your best AoM Pose. You can get as creative as you want with your picture. So long as you have your two dukes up, you’re golden. Have fun!

Step 3. Upload the photo to the Art of Manliness Community Photo Page.

Deadline to submit is Wednesday, August 10, 2011 by 11:59:59 PM CDT. You can upload your photos anytime before or on that day.

Selecting the Winner

After we receive the photos, we will pick the 5 best entries and post them on the site. Starting August 16, 2011 and running until August 23, 2011 voting will be open to the public at The Art of Manliness website. The AoM Pose with the most votes by 11:59 PM CDT will be named the winner.

The Prizes

Grand Prize: For such a virile contest, we couldn’t think of a manlier prize than a large coffee brown Saddleback Leather briefcase. John L. Sullivan would battle a hundred men at the same time for a hundred rounds to win such an awesome briefcase.

In addition to the briefcase, the Grand Prize winner will  also get one of everything in the Art of Manliness shop:

• The Art of Manliness: Classic Skills and Manners for the Modern Man
• 30 Days to a Better Man eBook
• Man’s Guide to the Holidays eBook
• Building Your Resiliency eBook
• A box of AoM Stationery
• One Art of Manliness T-shirt
• The Man in the Arena Poster
• IF Poster
• A set of Art of Manliness Calling Cards

And here’s something awesome. The winner will get a signed copy our new book Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues before it is even released. Imagine the manly pride you’ll feel knowing you’ll be the first man on the block to own this masterpiece of a book.

Total retail value of Grand Prize: $675!

First runner up:  Our first runner-up will receive an AoM prize package that includes our two AoM posters, an AoM T-shirt of their choice, and a signed copy of our first book The Art of Manliness: Classic Skills and Manners for the Modern Man.

Total retail value of runner-up prize: $53

What are you waiting for? Show your Art of Manliness pride, strike your AoM pose, take your picture, and enter today!

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY.  Legal residents of the 50 United States (D.C.) 13 years and older.  Ends 8/23/11.    Void where prohibited.  By submitting your photo, you grant AoM the non-exclusive right to use it for promotional purposes on their site and other platforms like facebook.com/artofmanliness. Basically, you maintain the copyright, and you just give us permission to publish it on the site. Capeche?

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