In a mountain village in mid-20th-century Crete, a young shepherd creeps toward his neighbor’s flock before dawn to steal his goats.
His heart races.
Not because he fears capture.
But because the raid represents his chance to prove he can thrive in uncertainty — to prove his manhood.
A century earlier and half a world away, a Comanche warrior edges his horse through tall grass, stalking a blue-coated cavalryman.
The brave’s goal isn’t to kill the soldier — it’s to touch the enemy with his coup stick and retreat unharmed.
One wrong move means death, but success brings honor, respect, and stories endlessly told around the campfire.
Today, in a hospital in the United States, a neurosurgeon stands over an exposed brain, scalpel in hand. His next move could mean salvation or catastrophe for the patient. The pressure is palpable, but that’s what drew him to this profession. The stakes are terrifying yet thrilling. The surgeon carefully places the scalpel near the optical nerve . . .
Three moments. Three cultures. One truth: The path to manhood runs through risk.
Statistics support this connection between manliness and taking risks — whether virtuous, immoral, or somewhere in between. As compared to women, men engage more often in risky behavior, from extreme sports to drinking and driving to gambling.
Cultures among peoples ranging from Cretan shepherds to Plains Indians created rites of passage involving risk. In brain surgery, over 90% of surgeons are men.
Being a man means taking risks. But why?
What Is Risk?
Risks are decisions or behaviors that could end badly. To risk is to expose yourself to potential danger — to physical, financial, or emotional damage. Starting a business risks money and pride. Asking someone out risks rejection and embarrassment.
While we take risks to gain glory, money, or love, it’s the possibility of loss that defines risk. Without potential loss, it’s just opportunity.
Risks can be big or small — from running into burning buildings to choosing a hole-in-the-wall restaurant for dinner.
Risk is also subjective. Scaling cliffs feels routine to experienced climbers but terrifying to novices. Our genes, upbringing, and environment all shape our subjective risk calculus.
Why Do Men Take Risks?
A woman is entitled to respect until she loses it. A man must earn respect. . . . He must repeatedly achieve: obtain, surpass, conquer. . . . Insecurity is essential to manhood. It must be claimed through public actions, risky things seen and validated by others — and it can be lost.
—Psychologist Roy Baumeister in Is There Anything Good About Men?
So back to our original question: Why is manliness linked to risk-taking?
Well, we can thank good old testosterone for that.
Studies show higher testosterone levels correlate with greater risk-taking in both sexes, but because men have higher T-levels than women, men (generally) take more risks. For example, in studies on gambling, men consistently bet more often than women and make riskier bets. And in studies of financial traders, male stockpickers tend to make riskier investments compared to female ones.
Natural and sexual selection favored high-T males who successfully took risks. Taking successful risks like hunting mastodons, exploring new territory, or fighting an invading tribe raised a man’s status, which in turn increased his sexual desirability and the likelihood that his genes would be passed on. This evolutionary pressure created a feedback loop: higher testosterone encouraged risk-taking behavior, which led to greater reproductive success, which then reinforced the predisposition for risk-taking in males. The pattern became deeply embedded in human biology and culture.
Because male risk-taking resulted in benefits to society as a whole, cultures across the world created practices that further reinforced this natural drive. Male rites of passage often required young men to face challenges that involved potential pain and danger. Even today, parents (if not always consciously) recognize the potential gains of risk-taking both to society and the individual and especially encourage their sons to put themselves out there.
Towards Positive Male Risk-Taking
If risk-taking is part of being a man, how do we get the most from it while mitigating its downsides? How do we manage the risk of risk-taking? (Is it manly to try to mitigate manly risk?)
The trick is finding ways to take manly risks that benefit the risk-taker as well as the group the risk-taker belongs to. Drunk driving and gambling do no good for anyone.
What I am advocating for is for men to find ways to inject a little more healthy, positive risk into their lives because taking risks is one of those things that can make you feel fully like a man.
So how can you start doing so?
Reframe risk. Risk isn’t just about gambling, extreme sports, or other traditionally “risky” activities. Risk is any decision or behavior with a significant probability of a negative outcome. This includes everyday choices like speaking up at a meeting, starting a new hobby, asking a woman out, or trying to make new friends. Recognizing that risk can be found in everyday things can help you see even small decisions as chances to exercise your risk-taking muscle.
Recognize your risk-taking tendencies. People’s genetic makeup and experiences influence how their brains process risk. Being on the more cautious side can have its advantages, as it keeps you from doing stupid stuff. But there are drawbacks to being excessively conservative, as it can cause you to miss out on opportunities. If you’re risk-averse by temperament, when something’s on the line you really want, recognize that you’ll need to push yourself, more than the average guy will, to surmount your natural inclinations and go for it.
Prepare and plan. There’s a misconception that risk-takers just wing it. In reality, the best risk-takers are meticulous planners. Free-climber Tommy Caldwell spent years preparing for his El Capitan climb. Even seemingly spontaneous risk-taking — like jazz musicians improvising or speakers working a crowd — is built on countless practice hours. Fortune favors the bold, but it also favors the prepared.
Start small; work your way up. You don’t have to quit your job and move across the country to start embracing risk. Start small. Maybe start a side hustle during your off-hours. If you want to get into acting, don’t begin by trying out for community theatre. Instead, join a local improv class. As you take smaller risks and experience success, you boost the confidence and motivation that you can carry over to taking bigger risks.
Learn from mistakes. Instead of viewing a negative outcome from taking a risk as a failure, view it as a learning opportunity — an experiment. You tested a hypothesis, and now you have more data to refine your approach or take a new tack. This is what the best poker players in the world do. Analyze what went wrong, extract lessons, and apply them to future decisions. Embrace a growth mindset and recognize that setbacks are part of the journey.
What Risk Will You Take Today?
Most of us aren’t going to be taking epic risks on a regular basis. But we can find our own arenas for meaningful risk-taking that tap into our manly thumos — our spirited drive for excellence and recognition.
Whether it’s starting that business you’ve been dreaming about, finally asking out that woman you’ve been thinking about, or simply speaking up more in meetings, there are plenty of ways to exercise your risk-taking muscles that don’t involve jumping out of perfectly good airplanes.
Pick one area of your life where you’ve been playing it safe, and push yourself just a little bit beyond your comfort zone. The path to manhood still runs through the gates of risk — and out into greener and more interesting pastures.
