The modern dating landscape presents men with a confusing paradox. Despite having more access to dating advice, apps, and opportunities than ever before, men report increasing frustration, loneliness, and confusion about how to attract quality women. The pickup artist tactics don’t create lasting relationships. The “nice guy” approach leads to friend zones and disrespect. So what actually works?
According to Coach Christian from BetterMan Academy, the answer lies not in techniques, lines, or strategies for pursuing women—but in a fundamental reorientation of priorities. Men must master themselves first, building genuine value and strength, before they can hope to attract and maintain relationships with quality women. This isn’t just dating advice—it’s a comprehensive approach to masculine development that naturally produces success with women as a byproduct.
In his podcast discussion on female desire and masculine responsibility, Coach Christian explains why the chase-based approach to dating fails and why self-mastery must come first. Understanding this principle can transform not just your dating life, but every aspect of your existence as a man.
The Fatal Flaw in Most Dating Advice
Pick up any dating advice book or watch popular content about attracting women, and you’ll notice a pattern. Most of it focuses on what to do, say, or present to women in order to generate attraction. It’s externally focused—teaching men to modify their behavior around women without addressing the internal foundation that makes those behaviors authentic and effective.
This approach creates several problems:
Incongruence between presentation and reality. Men learn to perform confidence without developing genuine self-assurance. Women’s instincts quickly detect this disconnect, leading to loss of attraction.
Outcome dependence. When your focus is on getting the woman, you become needy and desperate for validation. This neediness is inherently unattractive and undermines your efforts.
Fragile success. Even when techniques work initially, the lack of genuine foundation means relationships eventually expose your weaknesses. The woman’s testing reveals the hollow center beneath your presentation.
Exhausting maintenance. Constantly performing behaviors that don’t align with your actual development level requires enormous energy. The mask eventually slips, revealing the gap between image and reality.
Missing the real issue. The reason you struggle with women likely isn’t because you lack the right opener or don’t know the right moves. It’s because you haven’t developed yourself into a man worth choosing.
As Coach Christian emphasizes in the BetterMan Academy podcast, women serve as “incredible focus groups” for men. They provide real-time feedback about your level of masculine development. When you fail with women, they’re revealing areas where your foundation is weak—not because they’re cruel, but because their biological programming is designed to screen for genuine strength.
What Self-Mastery Actually Means
Before we can discuss why self-mastery precedes success with women, we must define what self-mastery actually entails. It’s not about perfection or eliminating all weaknesses. Rather, it’s about establishing genuine capability and discipline across the key domains of masculine life.
Self-mastery includes:
Physical discipline. Maintaining your body through consistent training, proper nutrition, adequate sleep, and healthy habits. Your physical state is both a cause and effect of your overall discipline.
Financial responsibility. Managing money wisely, building assets, eliminating debt, and creating security. Financial chaos indicates inability to plan and delay gratification.
Emotional regulation. Remaining centered and rational even when triggered or challenged. Your emotions inform you but don’t control your behavior.
Productive capacity. Consistently producing results in your work, projects, and goals. You finish what you start and continuously improve your output quality.
Time management. Using your hours purposefully rather than drifting through days reactively. You prioritize important over urgent and long-term over immediate gratification.
Relationship management. Maintaining healthy boundaries with family, friends, and colleagues. You choose associations that support your growth and limit toxic influences.
Continuous learning. Actively developing new skills, knowledge, and capabilities. You invest in your future self through present effort.
Personal integrity. Living according to your stated values even when it’s difficult or costly. Your actions align with your words across all contexts.
Notice that none of these directly involve women. That’s the point. Self-mastery is about establishing internal governance and capability that exists independently of female attention or validation. This independence is precisely what makes you attractive to quality women.
The Paradox of Attraction
Here’s the counterintuitive truth that Coach Christian emphasizes throughout his BetterMan Academy teaching: the less you need women for validation and happiness, the more attractive you become to quality women. Conversely, the more desperately you pursue female attention, the more it eludes you.
This paradox operates because:
Neediness repels attraction. When you chase validation through women, you communicate low value. High-value men don’t need external validation—they’re already validated through their accomplishments and self-mastery.
Independence creates desire. Women want access to valuable men who have options and purpose beyond relationships. A man consumed by his mission is far more attractive than one whose mission is pursuing women.
Outcome independence enables authenticity. When you’re not attached to specific outcomes with women, you show up authentically rather than performing. This congruence is deeply attractive.
Self-validation creates confidence. Genuine confidence comes from knowing your worth through demonstrated capability. This differs entirely from false confidence based on hoping women will validate you.
Purpose generates attractive energy. Men deeply engaged in meaningful pursuits radiate a masculine energy that feminine energy naturally wants to support and complement.
The man who has mastered himself doesn’t chase women because he doesn’t need to. His life is already full of purpose, growth, and satisfaction. Women become welcome additions to an already fulfilling existence rather than the missing piece he desperately seeks.
Why Women Expose Your Weaknesses
One of the most valuable insights from the BetterMan Academy podcast is understanding women’s role in revealing your developmental gaps. This isn’t something women do consciously or maliciously—it’s an instinctual screening mechanism designed to identify genuine masculine strength.
Women expose weaknesses through:
Testing behavior. They push boundaries, create drama, withdraw attention, and challenge your frame to see if you remain centered or become reactive.
Emotional fluctuation. Their moods and responses shift, testing whether you provide stable leadership or become destabilized by their instability.
Heightened perception. Women are incredibly attuned to incongruence between what you say and how you actually live. They notice everything.
Attraction as diagnostic. Whether a woman feels attracted reveals your level of masculine development more accurately than any self-assessment could.
Exit as feedback. When women leave or lose respect, they’re providing crucial data about weaknesses in your foundation that need addressing.
This is why Coach Christian says women are beautiful focus groups for market research. They’re giving you invaluable feedback about your masculine development—feedback you should use to strengthen yourself rather than becoming bitter or resentful.
The man who hasn’t mastered himself gets devastated when women expose his weaknesses because his identity and worth depend on their validation. The man who has established self-mastery uses this feedback productively, strengthening weak areas while maintaining his center and purpose.
The Proper Sequence: Self First, Women Second
Understanding the proper sequence of masculine development is critical. Most men get this backwards, pursuing women before establishing their foundation. This creates inevitable problems and painful lessons.
The wrong sequence looks like:
Meet a woman and become consumed by pursuing her. Abandon or deprioritize personal goals to focus on the relationship. Allow her moods and behaviors to dictate your emotional state. Restructure your life around maintaining her attraction. Eventually get exposed and dumped when she realizes you lack genuine foundation. Become bitter, confused, and defeated.
The right sequence looks like:
Focus primarily on building yourself—physically, financially, skillfully, emotionally. Develop genuine competence and capability that creates real confidence. Establish purpose and direction independent of relationships. Build discipline and structure in your daily life. Attract women naturally through the energy you generate. Welcome quality women into your already-fulfilling life. Maintain your foundation and priorities even within relationships.
Coach Christian from BetterMan Academy emphasizes that this second path isn’t easier—it’s actually more difficult in the short term because it requires real work on yourself rather than just pursuing external validation. But it’s infinitely more effective and sustainable.
The man who follows the proper sequence builds a foundation that supports not just dating success but excellence across all domains. The man who chases women first remains perpetually destabilized, building his house on sand that washes away with each failed relationship.
Building Your Masculine Foundation
So how do you actually build this foundation of self-mastery? It’s not complicated, but it requires consistent effort and brutal honesty about your current state. As the BetterMan Academy podcast makes clear, there are no shortcuts—only the work.
Start with physical discipline:
Establish a non-negotiable training schedule. Strength training is ideal because it builds both physical capability and mental discipline. Optimize your nutrition, sleep, and recovery. Your body is your most visible demonstration of self-governance. Eliminate addictions and vices that undermine your energy and focus. Build physical capabilities that increase your confidence and competence.
Develop financial responsibility:
Create and follow a budget that allocates resources purposefully. Eliminate consumer debt that drains your freedom and options. Build an emergency fund that provides security and options. Invest in assets that grow your wealth over time. Increase your earning capacity through skill development and value creation.
Establish productive capacity:
Identify your professional or entrepreneurial path and commit fully to excellence. Develop systems and routines that maximize your output quality. Eliminate time-wasting activities that don’t support your goals. Build skills that increase your value in the marketplace. Create tangible results that demonstrate your capability.
Cultivate emotional regulation:
Practice remaining centered when triggered or challenged. Develop awareness of your emotional patterns and reactivity. Build the gap between stimulus and response through mindfulness practices. Process emotions without being controlled by them. Maintain rational decision-making even under pressure.
Create meaningful goals:
Identify what you want to achieve in the next one, three, and five years. Break these down into quarterly and monthly milestones. Review progress regularly and adjust strategies as needed. Celebrate wins while maintaining forward momentum. Make your purpose bigger than any one relationship.
The Role of Pain and Failure
Coach Christian makes a crucial point in the BetterMan Academy podcast: pain and failure are often the catalysts that wake men up to the need for self-mastery. The man who gets his heart broken, faces rejection, or experiences humiliation receives a gift—if he uses it correctly.
Pain provides several benefits:
Destruction of pleasant illusions. Failure destroys the fantasy that you can succeed without genuine development. This clears space for truth and real growth.
Motivation for change. Comfort breeds complacency. Pain creates the urgency necessary to do difficult work on yourself.
Humility and teachability. Getting humbled makes you receptive to wisdom and guidance you previously would have rejected.
Diagnostic information. Failure reveals exactly where your foundation is weak, showing you precisely what needs strengthening.
Character development. How you respond to pain and failure determines whether you grow stronger or become bitter and defeated.
The men who thrive are those who use painful experiences with women as wake-up calls that redirect them toward self-development. They extract the lessons, strengthen the weaknesses exposed, and emerge more capable than before.
The men who fail are those who become victims of their pain, blaming women, society, or circumstances rather than taking responsibility for their own development.
Why You Need Masculine Community
One insight Coach Christian repeatedly emphasizes is that masculine development cannot happen in isolation. You need community—specifically masculine community composed of other men pursuing their own growth.
Masculine community provides:
Accountability. Other men will call out your excuses and hold you to higher standards than you’d hold yourself.
Perspective. When you’re consumed by a woman or relationship drama, male friends provide the outside view necessary to see clearly.
Modeling. Observing other men at different stages of development shows you what’s possible and how to get there.
Support. Other men who understand the masculine path can encourage you through difficult periods without enabling weakness.
Competition. Healthy competition with other men developing themselves pushes you to higher levels than you’d reach alone.
Shared wisdom. Learning from others’ successes and failures accelerates your own development dramatically.
This is why organizations like BetterMan Academy exist—to provide the masculine community that modern culture has systematically dismantled. Men need other men, not women, to support their masculine development journey.
Attempting to develop yourself while surrounded only by women or feminine influence will significantly slow or derail your progress. Women cannot teach you to be a man, and feminine energy will pull you off center during the vulnerable stages of your development.
Attracting vs. Chasing: Understanding the Difference
Once you’ve established genuine foundation through self-mastery, the dynamic with women shifts dramatically. Instead of chasing them, you attract them through the energy you naturally radiate while pursuing your mission.
Chasing looks like:
Constantly initiating contact and conversations. Adjusting your behavior to generate approval. Feeling anxious about her responses and availability. Prioritizing her schedule over your commitments. Seeking validation through her attention. Tolerating disrespect or poor treatment. Abandoning your standards to maintain access.
Attracting looks like:
Living purposefully while being open to quality women entering your life. Maintaining your schedule and priorities regardless of relationship status. Feeling centered and outcome-independent. Establishing clear standards and enforcing them. Receiving validation through your own accomplishments. Walking away from relationships that don’t meet your standards. Inviting women to join your journey rather than abandoning it for them.
The attracting approach only works authentically when backed by genuine self-mastery. You cannot fake this—women will sense the incongruence and see through the performance. But when your foundation is solid, attraction becomes natural and effortless.
What Changes When You Master Yourself
Men who complete the journey from chasing to attracting report dramatic shifts in their experience with women and life generally. As Coach Christian describes in BetterMan Academy content, self-mastery transforms everything.
You’ll notice:
Increased female attention. Women become more attracted and interested without you doing anything overtly different in your approach.
Higher quality options. The type of women you attract improves significantly. Feminine, supportive, attractive women replace chaotic, difficult, or low-value options.
Less drama and testing. While testing never completely disappears, its intensity and frequency decrease dramatically when women sense your solid foundation.
Easier maintenance. Relationships require less energy and stress because your frame provides stability that feminine energy naturally supports.
Better outcomes. When relationships end, you maintain your center and move forward productively rather than collapsing into dysfunction.
General life improvement. The same self-mastery that attracts women also creates success in career, finances, health, friendships, and personal satisfaction.
Reduced neediness. You genuinely don’t need validation from women because your worth is established through your own capability and accomplishments.
Authentic confidence. Your confidence isn’t dependent on specific outcomes—it comes from knowing you can handle whatever arises.
The Continuous Journey
An important caveat: self-mastery isn’t a destination you reach and then stop developing. It’s a continuous practice that requires ongoing commitment. As Coach Christian emphasizes, even after establishing strong foundation, you must maintain it through consistent discipline and effort.
The journey includes:
Regular physical training and health optimization. You don’t get fit once and stay fit forever. Maintenance is continuous.
Ongoing skill development and learning. The marketplace and world continuously evolve. You must evolve with them.
Deepening emotional mastery. New levels of stress and challenge will continue testing your regulation capabilities.
Expanding financial capabilities. Building wealth and security is a long-term process requiring sustained effort.
Strengthening relationships and community. Your masculine network requires investment and nurturing over time.
Evolving your purpose and mission. As you accomplish goals, new ones emerge. Forward momentum never stops.
Men who establish initial foundation but then become complacent often find themselves losing ground. The maintenance phase requires less intensity than the building phase, but it still demands consistent effort.
Conclusion: The Path of Masculine Development
The insights from Coach Christian’s BetterMan Academy podcast point toward a clear but challenging path. Success with women—real, lasting success, not just short-term attraction—requires establishing genuine masculine foundation through self-mastery. There are no shortcuts, techniques, or hacks that can replace this fundamental development.
The painful truth many men resist is that they’re not currently worthy of the quality women they desire. Not because they’re bad people, but because they haven’t done the work necessary to develop into men of genuine value and strength. This isn’t a judgment—it’s feedback pointing toward the necessary growth.
The good news is that this development is entirely within your control. You cannot control whether specific women choose you. You cannot control the dating market or cultural conditions. But you can absolutely control your commitment to building yourself into a man of exceptional capability, discipline, and purpose.
When you make this commitment and follow through with consistent action, everything changes. Women become a wonderful addition to your already-fulfilling life rather than the validation you desperately seek. Attraction becomes natural rather than forced. Relationships serve your growth rather than derailing it.
Most importantly, you develop into the grounded, capable, confident version of yourself that succeeds not just with women but in every domain of life. This is the essence of masculine responsibility—taking full ownership of your development and building yourself into someone worth choosing.
The path begins with brutal honesty about where you currently stand, followed by commitment to doing whatever work is necessary to establish genuine foundation. Will you take responsibility and begin the journey, or will you continue chasing external validation that remains forever out of reach?
As Coach Christian teaches through BetterMan Academy, the choice is yours—but the consequences of that choice will define your experience as a man in the modern world.
This article is based on insights from Coach Christian’s podcast episode “Female DESIRE Doesn’t Care About FEMINISM” from the BetterMan Academy YouTube channel. Visit https://www.skool.com/betterman/about to join a community of men committed to masculine development and self-mastery.