
The world needs better men.
I sit here mashing at the keys in no way a perfect man.
In fact, I believe that if you think you are the perfect man…well, theres one problem with you right there.
The Better Man Project blog isn’t intended to be an instruction manual on how to be a better man, but rather my own journey towards becoming the man that I have always wanted to be.
I have had my excuses, my failures, my successes and shortcomings, which have all led me to this point. Sitting in front of you, listening to the patter of my fingers on the keys. I have always loved writing.
Even though I will be blogging this, I will still have my Moleskin, the overpriced lined diary which I immediately fell in love with not because of the quality of the book, but rather because of one statement. “The legendary notebook of Hemingway.”
Anyone who has ever seen a moleskin would understand. The thought of writing in the same type of notebook as Hemingway or Fitzgerald is enticing…it almost drives you to the bar and nudges you to have three or four and see what you could come up with while intoxicated.
But I digress.
This blog is my 30 day attempt to break all the bad habits I have ever had.
Each day, I will go through one thing that I believe that is crucial to my development as a man, and hopefully along the way, you will get something out of it too.
I have always wanted to write down the things that matter to me most.
Trust me, I’ve been through hell. I can show you vouchers.
But there is something very calming about being able to look back on the times when you thought you weren’t going to make it out alive and realize that you did.
When I was going through the worst of it, someone once told me “God only gives you as much as you can handle.” This one phrase kept me fighting for the duration no matter how tough it was…because I knew, that this was my test, my challenge, and I had to get through it.
This leads me to my first post of this blog.

Standing for Something
I was asked a very interesting question a few months ago. “Evan, what do you stand for as a person?” To be honest, I stared blankly back at them, not because I was confused by the question, but because I really had no idea.
“What the hell do I stand for?” I thought to myself. So I did the one thing that I have been doing since 2nd grade…I made a brainstorming cloud.
Trust, loyalty, determination, perseverance…you know, words that sound good on a resume or entries in the thesaurus.
Overcoming setbacks…staring down fear…no, no, no, no…..and it came down to me looking back on a few of my favorite quotes of all time. The first is from Rocky Balboa. Yeah, I know, Rocky right? Despite the lisp and the hard to get past lingo, he is quite an impressive director/writer/ Heres the first thing I live by…and if this doesn’t tug at your heart strings a little bit, well, we will work on that in a later post.
This video means the world to me. It was my part of my senior quote in high school. “Life’s not about how hard you can hit, but how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”
For me, going through the roughest of times, that keeps me up and going. Keeps me scratching and clawing no matter what. Because in the end, I know I will be okay.
The second quote is posted on my wall in my room, in my binder cover, and I feel like its tattooed on my brain.
My best friend always rags on Will Smith…and while I know that he didn’t write these lines…he delivered them perfectly. “You have a dream, you have to protect it…You want something, go get it, period.”
So what do I stand for? Well, this is more of what do I want to stand for from now on. After thinking about it long and hard, I finally found it.
Never Quitting.
This stands for everything. Never quitting on: relationships, tests, myself, classes, workouts, books, working on myself, friends, promises…the list goes on.
For me, this is a very measurable aspect of my life. I can tell whether I quit on something or not, whether I gave up or kept going.
There have been events in my life where I have given up and quit, and even thinking about them now I get nauseous. But now, knowing what I stand for and it being at the heart of my character, I will try my best to never stray from that value.
Challenge yourself to never quit on anything during that day. Find what you stand for and let it drive your life.
“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project
Its an everlasting battle I believe. See it through till the end. Decide that you won’t stop trying until you achieve it. Thank you for following and I look forward to seeing more great comments from you!
Your blog speaks directly about something I’ve been wrestling with my entire life…quitting or giving up! I’ve wasted numerous great opportunities in life because I wasn’t willing to persevere or patient enough to see things through. This is probably the worst learned behavior a person can adopt. I know it provided me with a false sense of entitlement, and for the longest time I was unwilling to look at the sole person responsible for this….ME! I too want to be a better man, husband, father, friend, and person. However I know in order to take part on that journey, I too can NEVER QUIT! I’ll be following you on your journey as I maneuver through my own and I hope we both achieve our goal! Thank you for opening up and sharing your life and I hope you know it’s inspiring and encouraging to me.
I love reading your blog and was reading about your how to be a man and clicked on your first post to see what it was of. I find it highly ironic that my best friend just gave me a beautiful wooden plaque thing with this quote on it for christmas. Even more ironic is my blog is about the quest for finding a better man and the my journey of the not so good ones. Thank you for writing everything down and being who you are. It really is inspiring.
Hey you! I’m doing quite well. Thanks! Hope things are good with you too.
Hope you’re doing well!
Thank you Joel! Thank you for the kind words. It makes me happy to know that there are people out there that respect others. I am also really glad you can personally relate to the start of it.
I’ll motivate you like crazy! Follow me on Facebook http://on.fb.me/RC57QW and Twitter http://bit.ly/Z0zCq9 to get pumped up daily!
Thank you! When I read my book over for editing purposes, I did a post about this one specifically and it was very interesting to see the juxtaposition. Thanks for reading along.
I’ll motivate you like crazy! Follow me on Facebook http://on.fb.me/RC57QW and Twitter http://bit.ly/Z0zCq9 to get pumped up daily!
That is awesome! Thank you for taking the journey with me and seeing where I have come from and where I am off to! Please let me know if you have any questions. I would love to know what you think.
I’ll motivate you like crazy! Follow me on Facebook http://on.fb.me/RC57QW and Twitter http://bit.ly/Z0zCq9 to get pumped up daily!
Heya 🙂 I’ve been reading snippets of posts here and there since I first discovered your blog (a wordpress suggestion while I was making my own, lol) but I was determined not to really get into reading it until I had time to go back to the beginning and read it in the proper order. And as I like knowing people are reading, or looking at, things I have “created” I figured you might as well. So …whaddup. I’m about to read it all from day 1 +.
Almost a year later, I’m curious to know how you would comment on this post.
I for one, am reading the rest of it. Congrats on a great blog!
Had to see the start of it all. Proud of people like you. I can relate to why you started it, the need to fill in the blanks in one’s life and the drive to self improvement.
Call it a desperate insomnia, but your blog is getting some old school reads. Standing for “never quitting” is great. It could keep a person alive.