Redefining Masculinity: The Words That Are Keeping Men Weak l EP. 53 l

  Most men (& online coaches/influencers) throw around words like “masculinity,” “presence,” and “leadership” without ever defining them. And if you can’t define it — you’ll never live it. 

In this episode, I break down the most overused words in men’s work and translate them into clear, measurable behaviors that you can actually live by.
No fluff. No spiritual wallpaper. Just grounded definitions that help you show up as the man you say you want to be — especially in your marriage. 

I’ll walk you through: 

• What masculine really means (and why you’ve likely misunderstood it)
• The difference between emotional dumping and true vulnerability
• How to actually hold space for your partner (without collapsing into a nice guy)
• Why presence is more than just being quiet — and how to measure it
• The #1 mistake killing polarity in your relationship
• And how to use clarity of language to build authority, connection, and respect

This is the episode I wish I had years ago — when I was performing instead of embodying, pretending instead of leading.
 If you're a high-performing man who’s serious about becoming a grounded husband, father, and leader — this is where your evolution starts.
 
Action Step:
 Pick one word from this episode you use often but haven’t truly defined.
Now define it. Then measure it. Then live it.
 

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Transcript

Harrison Orr (00:01.336)
Most men throw around words like masculinity, leadership and presence, but most couldn't define them if their marriage depended on it. And that's the problem. You can't live or change what you cannot define.

Harrison Orr (00:20.504)
You're listening to the Be Better podcast. I'm Harrison Norr. You're listening to the Be Better podcast. I'm Harrison Norr and I've coached almost 500 men. You're listening to the Be Better podcast. I'm Harrison Norr and after coaching almost 500 men, one truth stands out. Your marriage, business and peace of mind all hinge on one thing. How grounded you are as a man.

In the men's space, language, and not just men's space actually, in the relationship and a lot of online niches, language has just become noise. Like there's these hype words like holding space or vulnerability or masculine energy, safety, and they sound deep. They sound clinical almost in some of them, but they've lost their weight. Like they've become this spiritual wallpaper, words that just people throw out and it sounds...

like it's something that you should strive for. It sounds like progress, but how do you know what that actually looks like in intangible, changeable behavior? So this episode is about taking that language back, breaking it down, defining some of the most overused words in men's work and not to sound smart, not just to provide a dictionary of an episode, but to make them usable. So that when a man says, be present.

or be grounded.

It actually means something so that you can see it, you can feel it, you can measure it in your behavior. So you know exactly what to do and even if it fucking applies to you in the beginning. Because if a man can't define what he's trying to become, he will spend his life performing instead of actually living it. I've spoken to so many guys that get the gist that, okay, I'm not as good as I could be. There's this element in my marriage or as a man that I'm missing.

Harrison Orr (02:16.175)
but I don't quite know what it is. And then maybe they've heard a bunch of these terms and they're like, cool, maybe, but without a strong definition, it's still left up to chance. And I stole on this concept from Alex Hormozi because he's one of my idols, not just as a business owner, but in his level of character.

the way that he pursues things, the way that he articulates himself. And I think that's why he's been so popular in content over the last couple of years is because he breaks words down so simply, right? Or defines terms so simply, I should say. It doesn't matter if you've been in business for 20 plus years or you've just started your first business. He breaks it down in terms that you can understand.

And that's my intention moving forward and in this episode to help break down some of these terms so that they actually make fucking sense. And it would be a miss if we started with anything other than the term masculine. What the fuck is masculinity? As a nice guy, I used to believe that masculinity was like alpha. You were macho. And I've since realized masculine is not domination.

It is not overpowering people. It's not arrogance. It is simply direction. The ability to decide and move forward. We can go into so many sub traits that you are impeccable with your word, you provide direction, you hold space, you do all these things. But broken down simply, it's the ability to decide and move forward, to take action.

With some of these as well, I'd like you to recognise that some of them, like masculine or feminine or even nice guy, are labels. And it's an accumulation of many traits to become that.

Harrison Orr (04:16.182)
It's the same as confident, right? When people say like, well, how do you be confident? Or how do you be charismatic? That's probably a better one. Well, charismatic is an accumulation of little traits. It's the posture, the facial expression, the tone of voice, the energy that you use and respond with people, the questions that you ask. It's the way that you make someone feel when you interact with them, right? So it's a lot of little things. And when we break those down, it becomes a lot easier to see

this is the one that I'm missing. This is the one that has the biggest impact in my life. This is what I need to address. So you can look at that through masculine. You say, I want to be more masculine. Amazing. Which element of masculinity is having the biggest impact on your life that you need to address? Is it, I struggle to make decisions. Is it, I struggle to be impeccable with my word. Or this. Amazing. Now we can be much more clear on what we're striving to achieve and the actions that we need to take to get there.

The next one, what the fuck is feminine? Feminine is not weakness. It's not, it's like on one aspect, yes, it is emotional chaos, those things, but there is levels to both masculinity and femininity. When we talk about the healthy feminine masculine, which we'll be using today, feminine is just emotion and connection.

Think of masculine as logic and action, feminine is emotion and connection. That's the life force that comes into everything. Now I want you to recognize that we are not masculine or feminine. We are both. It's the yin to the yang in the same way that we have both testosterone and estrogen in our body. Both men and women have both. They both serve different purposes.

One is not more important than the other. One is not superior to the other. They just have different use cases. Whether you are more masculine or more feminine will depend on your nature as a human. About 80 % of men are more masculine by nature and 80 % of women are more feminine by nature in the same way that they probably have the corresponding levels of testosterone to estrogen. There's always people that lie outside that, but we're talking about generalized for here.

Harrison Orr (06:36.258)
The next one that goes perfectly with those two, which you've heard fucking a stack, is polarity. Polarity is simply the charge that exists when one leads and one opens. One is receptive to that leadership. In the same way that there's magnets, right? We have the South Pole and the North Pole. They each play their role in spinning the world, keeping us on that perfect axis, which allows life to thrive on Earth.

in the same way that we have chiefs and Indians. Too many chiefs, no one wants to take direction and we don't go anywhere. Everyone butts heads and there's always arguments. Too many Indians and there's no direction, there's no movements, there's just quarreling over what we're gonna do like headless chickens running around in circles. We need the chief and the Indian. Neither is more powerful than the other. Each provides a role within the overall mission to get to where we wanna go.

Harrison Orr (07:35.543)
Now I want to go into more of some of the emotional phrases that you may have heard in this space. Like holding space. What does that actually mean? When you hear the term holding space, I don't know about you, but I've heard that many, many times and...

I can quite confidently say most people that say that term actually have no idea what the fuck that means. And most people hearing that also, okay, that sounds great, but what exactly do you mean? Holding space is simply being able to stay present and grounded while another person feels and expresses without fixing or running away.

I'll get into what grounded and present are later as well, so we break these down. But holding space is simply being able to remain present while another person feels and expresses. That's all it is. It's holding the space for them to express that emotion without you needing to fix it, without giving them criticism or feedback, simply allowing them to express and to feel. That's it.

Now vulnerability, too many men think of vulnerability is just emotional dumping onto their partner. That will not serve your relationship. That will hinder your marriage more than anything because she will then start to see you as another girlfriend that she gossips with and blurts out emotion. It will kill the trust and respect. Subconsciously, she will then start to realize that, he can't handle his emotions, so he's not gonna be able to handle mine. Vulnerability is being able to speak your truth

even when it costs you something, even, sorry, despite any consequences, especially when it's scary. It's not emotional dumping and just vomiting everything that's on your plate. It's being able to share that truth, what it is that you're feeling, what it is that's inside you.

Harrison Orr (09:43.949)
without worrying about that consequence. But there's still a level of, I don't wanna say restraint, but a level of composure in this expression, depending on who you're sharing it with. The vulnerability that you share with your wife is going to be different to the vulnerability that you have with your circle of men. Circle of men is where you are then able to,

express whatever it is, right, to the depths of your core in which you need to unload that to get feedback, to get challenged on, whatever it is that you're needing in that space without fear of loss of trust, loss of respect that you would subconsciously achieve by going to that depth with your partner.

Then we have emotional availability. Emotion availability is not matching her emotion. It's not reactive to her emotions. It's not being a sob. It's simply staying open when there are heightened emotions. Similar to holding space, it's being able to stay present so that you are felt in that interaction when she brings that emotion to you.

instead of completely disconnecting, disassociating, and she feels like she's talking to a doorknob that has no empathy or the emotional intelligence of a plank of wood.

Harrison Orr (11:18.658)
then safety. Now, most men hear safety and think like, of course, what do mean? I'm safe. I'm not aggressive. I'm not physical. I've never hit her. I've never threatened her. So what do mean you don't feel safe? It's emotional safety. Emotional safety is your tone and energy when she brings a problem or a heightened emotion to you. It's how you respond.

Can she feel safe in bringing her whole unfiltered truth and emotion to you without fear that you will react, that you will shut down, that you will run away, that you will do something that hinders her ability to share that. And that shows up in our kids as well. If your kid shares something with you.

something honest about you know something that they would normally get in trouble for and You proceed to punish them for it to raise your voice to yell to create a scene that subconsciously tells them Don't be that honest with dad. Don't share that much because I don't want to get in trouble I don't want to feel like that. I don't him to be disappointed in me or get angry at me. So I'm just gonna leave that bit out because

there's no safety there. There's no safety that they can fully express that truth or that emotion.

And so when a man learns these four to begin with, this holding space, the vulnerability, the emotional availability and the safety and what they actually mean and how to embody and show up with those, you start to trust yourself more and be confident in this space and your wife will start to trust you again.

Harrison Orr (13:02.55)
not because you're saying the right words, not because you've vomited emotion back at her, because you've dropped into your feminine thinking that feminine matches feminine energy and like versus like so that that will create connection, might create connection as friends and roommates, but not as lovers and a married couple. This is where your...

I don't want to say embodiment, because again, that's another word that gets tossed around a lot. But the congruency between who you want to be and then who you show up as starts to change.

Then the next layer is the internal layer. Things like presence, authority, groundedness. Again, all very nice words, all very overused words. But what do they actually mean? How do I measure if I'm embodying this, if I am this, or if this is something that needs work? Presence is not laziness, it's not disconnection. It's simply attention in the moment.

You are in your body, not in thought. Think of moments where you have just been so in the moment. Maybe it was a moment with your wife. Maybe it was the moment that your child was born. Maybe it was the moment you got married and you weren't overthinking anything. You weren't thinking about what do I need to do next? What do need to say next? Like what's happening after this? You were simply feeling and enjoying the moment.

That's presence. Presence is feeling overthinking. And then by extension, authority is living in that presence where your behavior and words are the same, whether you're in private or public.

Harrison Orr (14:54.282)
Authority is behavior and words that are the same whether you're in private or public.

that becomes scary for a lot of men, a lot of nice guys, because then if that authenticity gets rejected, sorry, I can't remember if I said authority or authenticity. Authenticity is the definition we're going for here. Behavior and words are the same in private and public. When you're authentic, you risk being rejected. You risk being disapproved of or criticized.

And when we are authentic and we get that response, there's no mask, there's no layer to hide behind. Whereas when nice guys put up these walls and they try to think through what do this person want from me, what do need to say or do to get this person to like me, to love with me, to pay me money, to sleep with me, to insert desired outcome, then okay, they can reject that and that's fine, I'll just throw on a new mask and try the next thing. But it's not me. When you're authentic.

you risk that and that's scary for lot of people. But would you rather have friends and people in your life that don't really know you, just have a version of you that you've put this mask on where they think they know you but they don't really and kind of like you but not really.

or have a couple of people in your life that know who you are, deeply love you for that version of, for you for who you are, not for what you do for them, not for what you do for the world, but simply who you are as an individual. And everybody else or other people don't. And that's totally fine, because not everyone will align with your values and interests.

Harrison Orr (16:41.78)
If you've ever had a conversation with someone who was deeply into one thing and you're deeply into a polar opposite, know, someone's very into the Vax and, you know, living by the law and like all these things and you're like, dude, I'm sketchy on the government fucking against the vaccines and all these things. You don't have to think they're a bad person, but you just don't have things in common. And that's fine.

The next one is being grounded, groundedness even. This is an extension of presence and this is where we're able to stay in the moment, feel everything that comes up.

which is not always a fun emotion. Sometimes it's anger or frustration. Sometimes it's sadness. Sometimes our then thoughts try to then justify those feelings. It will go into blaming. It will go into excuses. It will go into all these other stories to justify that emotion and keep that emotion alive in us. Being grounded is the ability to experience all of that, but take an observer's view.

So I can feel the emotion. I can witness the thoughts and the stories coming up. But that's all I do is just witness them. I let them come in, I let them go out. And that emotion chemically only lasts 90 seconds in the body. And so just by observing it, soon it fades away. The height of that emotion comes down. I can introduce some logic and now I can decide how I want to proceed without reacting.

And so I filmed a podcast just a few weeks ago on my experience when I was camping of this very instance. I had forgotten a few essential things for the camping trip. Very frustrated, very annoyed. And I felt that in my chest, even in my throat. And I watched all the justifications coming up.

Harrison Orr (18:50.424)
Fuck this, why'd you go camping anyway? You know, I've been so busy, you don't have time for this. Should have just gone somewhere where you didn't have to pack so much stuff and started to blame my wife. It's her fault, I didn't even want to be here. And like all these other things, all these other justifications for the act of me forgetting some things. But because I was able to witness the emotion instead of suppressing it, witness the thoughts without a reacting or attaching to them, I didn't say or do anything that I later regretted.

Within a few minutes, I was back to neutral. Okay, I'll just go down in Bunnings, pick up what we forgot and I can go to the shops. We're not in the middle of no man's land. That's fine, problem solved. By the time I got back, we're all happy. Everyone's calmed down. There's no words or actions that need apologizing for, haven't ruined any of the trip. We're good, we're back on track. Because I stood, stayed grounded and didn't allow those emotions to...

dictate my words or behaviors. when a man can define the language that is in his space, he can start to define his life. When you're looking at, am I the way that I am? What are the problems that I have with my life right now? What is the difference or the gap between

who I am and who I want to be, the life that I'm living, rest of the life that I want. We can now start to then introduce the plan in order to bridge that gap. When we just say, I want to be successful. I want to feel fulfilled. I want to feel peace. I want to like do these things. It's like, the fuck does any of that mean? How do you measure any of that? How will you know? How do you know that you don't have it? What is it like? There's no clarity in achieving that.

They're just words that don't really mean anything. And so clarity is power. Vague words make vague men. The guys that just like say things, don't really mean them. There's no depth. They're just all words, no talk.

Harrison Orr (21:00.77)
And so these words are not philosophy. They're simply practices in distilling them down to make these words measurable and easy to then define. Are you doing it or are you not? Is it a value or something of importance? Here is the actions that then define that. Because when you can define them, you live them. So now let that clarity in your language become the strength in your presence.

if you find yourself using words that you don't fully understand or you haven't fully defined to this depth, challenge yourself to define them or seek a definition that makes it easier for you to take action on, to measure.

Now I challenge you when you start to hear these terms apply them through this filter through these defined terms.

Then pick the ones that align with the challenges that you're facing or the man on the life that you're striving to become and achieve.

Harrison Orr (22:20.376)
So with that, if this was helpful, actually, before we go, if this was helpful, shoot me a message. I'd love to know if this is helpful, because I love defining some of these terms in this articulation, because it helps my simplistic brain work a hell of a lot better, make sense of otherwise gibberish. If that's helpful for you, let me know, and then I'll do a follow up to this, because even just in presenting this, this has been massively helpful for my level of articulation and clarity.

So with that, don't be sorry, be better. See you guys next time.