Chances are you’ve heard the term alpha male before. In this article, I’ll cover what an alpha male (or female) really is, break down some common misconceptions, and investigate what it takes to become one.
Maybe you’ve heard the term alpha male in your social circle when someone has the most ripped v-shaped body or several hook-ups from Tinder.
Or maybe you’ve even seen some self-development gurus telling you to wear a suit or speak with lower tonality to look more “alpha”. Today I’ll tell you why all this is irrelevant and share with you what being an alpha male is really about.
By the way, this article contains a lot of content about alpha males, but women also can benefit from these tips.
What is an alpha male?
The alpha male is the most powerful individual in a group of animals. Many species have a natural urge to form different hierarchies and compete against each other. The alpha male is on top of the hierarchy and therefore enjoys several benefits such as attracting most of the females.
This biological trait is common among many animals such as lions, monkeys, and also humans. When you see people forming hierarchies where some are more or less popular, it’s because of your natural urge to compete. This trait is usually more common with boys and men, but also apparent with women.
The alpha male in the history
In this article, I solely focus on humans. The alpha male in the history of humans was the strongest individual in the group who had the most success with hunting down animals and reproducing with the opposite sex. If someone tried to steal his food or women, he could just beat the life out of that individual.
As you can see, being an alpha male at the stone age was all about having the greatest physical capabilities. It was pretty simple, the stronger and more violent you were, the more likely you were the alpha male.
There was pretty much nothing to do to change your position in the hierarchy. That was how humans behaved millennia ago, and how the less advanced species like monkeys behave today.
The alpha male in the modern world
Today the situation is different. Being an alpha male has little to do with your muscle strength or ability to fight others. If you try to beat someone who talks to your girlfriend, you’ll end up arrested and probably single since everyone starts to consider you an asshole.
See, in today’s world, you don’t have to be the best hunter or the strongest individual to be an alpha male. We have the local supermarkets where we can buy food and law reinforcement to protect us.
Well, what defines the alpha male in today’s hierarchy? It’s your mindset and mental capability. See, most of the battles are carried out verbally. The most successful people today have mastered their mindset to pursue wealth and success in career. And more important than looks in seducing women are your confidence, charisma, and social skills.
All these are about your mentality! And the good news is, they’re something you can improve. Today it’s easier than ever to climb up higher in the hierarchy.
Signs you’re an alpha male
In my opinion, it’s inconvenient to split everybody into alpha or beta males. Every one of us has different traits and characteristics. Some of them are alpha characteristics and some are beta.
The beta male or female is a weaker individual who is considered to be lower in the hierarchy.
Sure, there are people whose almost every trait is alpha and people who are total betas, but the best way to discover if you’re an alpha male is to consider how many alpha male traits you have.
In the list below, I’m about to share, in my opinion, the 10 most important traits that alpha males have.
What makes an alpha male?
As we learned before, being an alpha male is not about your six-pack abs or fancy cars. Yes, many alpha males have those, but they aren’t necessary. More about that later. Being an alpha male is about your mindset and mental capability.
Your mindset is your greatest asset. It defines your happiness, how you set your goals, how you treat failure, how other people see you, and much more! Therefore it’s important to master it. Whether you’re a teenager or an adult, male or female, or anything.
The following traits will help you to get the most out of your life, and becoming the alpha male or female.
Alpha male traits
Confidence
Needless to say, confidence is one of the most important and attractive traits that you can have. Alphas are confident in themselves, knowing that they aren’t perfect, but it’s ok.
Every person on this planet has strengths and flaws. True alpha male confidence means that you are deeply secure with your flaws, knowing that everyone has them.
Confidence also means seeing yourself as a valuable person. Confident people know that they deserve a partner who is someone’s opinion could be out of their league. They don’t care about other people’s opinions and all they need is their own approval.
True confidence is not about bragging about a new car or expensive clothes. It’s about knowing that no one’s better than you and treating yourself with all the respect.
One way to increase confidence is to work on every area of your life. If you want to increase your inner confidence, which is way more important, check out this article.
Leadership
Alpha males are natural leaders. If there’s a situation where people need to co-operate, the alpha male usually is in charge.
Learning to lead is an important skill that can benefit you in many different situations such as social events and career meetings. Usually, the leaders are earning a nice salary and they are liked in social circles because they run different events and solve problems.
Alphas like to step out and take charge of situations when no one else is doing it. If they see a problem they’ll call it out, and inspire other people to work together to achieve collective good.
Leadership requires confidence and social skills, but once you master those, it actually becomes pretty enjoyable. The next time you see an opportunity to lead or stand out, go for it! Even if you fail, you’ll gain some great experience.
Positivity
Alpha males are positive people in general, and therefore others like them. The truth is that there are both good and bad things in this world, but alphas focus on spreading the good. They enjoy bringing positivity to any kind of environment by telling good jokes, giving compliments, and coming up with new ideas that benefit everyone.
Alphas don’t dwell on negativeness. If there’s something they don’t like, they act to fix that problem rather than complaining about it. They let go of past mistakes and negative experiences as fast as possible.
If there’s something that has to be done to deal with negativeness, they’ll act. For example, if someone’s feeling bad, they’ll cheer them up and talk to them. The happiness of themselves and their friends is important for them.
Action
Alphas know that the world replies to action, not talking. When an alpha male comes up with an idea or sees something that needs to be dealt with, they take action.
They know that talking doesn’t make things happen. Action does. Therefore they focus on taking action on things that matter and need to be done.
Alphas apply this principle consistently in every area of their lives. They complete their tasks and work on themselves more than just talking about their new ideas and dreams.
Constant improvement
This is a trait that causes a lot of misconceptions about alpha males. They improve their life constantly by implementing good habits into their lives. This is why many alpha males are successful at their careers and also in a good shape.
However, this is not because they wanted to impress others. It’s because they want to improve themselves to maximize the quality of their lives. See, an alpha male knows he deserves the best life possible and takes action on his goals to achieve them.
This is why alphas usually have success with career and dating. A fancy car or hot girlfriend doesn’t make you alpha. I know people who are in a relationship with good-looking girls but are far away from alphas.
What really makes you an alpha male is your mindset, and that mindset also makes you more likely to succeed, because alphas work on themselves constantly. Not to impress others, but for their own convenience.
Forget your ego
I know, it’s easy to get offended when someone insults you or does something that causes inconvenience. However, alpha males don’t feel like getting their revenge on every single person who causes them to have negative experiences.
See, you have to focus on the action above your ego. This means letting go of negative experiences as fast as possible. Let’s say, someone insults you at a club and before you even have time to react, they leave the situation.
What do you do? Well, you could get together with your friends, figure out a clever come back and go after that guy. Or, you could forget your ego and focus on your own time, knowing that the opinions of random morons don’t matter.
Alpha males don’t let people get inside their heads and manipulate them. If there’s something you can conveniently do to deal with negative people you should do it, but always ask yourself, is it really worth it?
There are losers on this planet who try to pick a fight with you when you’re alone and they have an entire group of friends. Or maybe they insult you when they know you’re alone and in a bad mood. Anything where they can take a huge advantage using the logistics.
There will be situations where someone causes you inconvenience, and there’s very little you could do about it. All this is OK.
As an alpha male, it’s your responsibility to know that your own life is too important to be taken down by losers and haters. You will face nasty things when you put yourself out there, but remember that words can’t hurt you and humans are capable of going through negative things.
Therefore, let go of your ego. You don’t need to prove yourself to your haters or get revenge on everyone who causes you inconvenience. Carry out yourself with dignity and focus on your own success.
This will eventually destroy those people when they see you succeeding and not giving a fuck about them.
High self-esteem
Alpha males have high self-esteem for a couple of reasons. Firstly, they have mastered their mindset to know that no one is better than them and they don’t need anyone’s approval to be happy. Secondly, they constantly improve their life in any way possible, and therefore it’s easy for them to feel good about themselves.
High self-esteem means that you value yourself regardless of other people’s opinions and your flaws. If you want to know more about raising your self-esteem, read this article.
Calmness
Alphas stay calm under pressure. This doesn’t mean that they aren’t afraid. It means that they accept the feeling of fear and keep doing what needs to be done.
It’s important to know that whatever stressful situation you’re going to face, you’ll perform the best when you don’t panic. If something stressful or shocking occurs, an alpha male focuses more on actions to deal with it than reacting strongly and emotionally.
This trait will both make you attractive and make you perform better in life. You can practice this by doing mindfulness exercises or taking ice-cold showers.
Braveness
There’s a saying that success takes place outside of your comfort zone, and it’s true. If you want to gain success, you’ll probably have to exit your comfort zone and do something that scares you.
Alphas don’t shrink away from fear. They do whatever scares them if they have to take a risk to succeed or face intimidation to stand up for themselves.
Often, it’s necessary to do something intimidating to achieve success. This can be anything from starting a business by spending money to standing up for your friend who’s getting insulted.
Sure, you may face negative consequences when taking risks, but those risks are necessary if you want to live your life with full potential. Taking a risk and failing is better than never trying. After all, you can deal with the negative consequences and perform better next time.
Purpose
Alpha males have a clear vision and a goal that they pursue. This so-called purpose can be anything as long as it inspires you and keeps distracts you from things that don’t matter.
It can be building a million-dollar business or becoming the fittest guy in your social circle. Pretty much anything that keeps you inspired and excited about your life.
When you have a purpose, you don’t stress about useless things like a girl who’s ignoring you or a dude who doesn’t like you. Having a strong purpose is one of the greatest ways to improve your life.
Alpha male vs beta male
A beta male is the opposite of an alpha male. In history, beta males usually had a pretty tough time since alphas would beat them up if they tried to steal their food or hit on their females.
Today, being a beta male doesn’t mean that your life is a constant battle, but it can cause you serious problems. Here is a more specific list of alpha and beta differences.
- Alphas are confident. Betas insecure.
- Alphas are leaders. Betas just go wherever life and other people take them.
- Alphas are deeply secure with their flaws knowing that everybody has them. Betas try to cover them and blame them on other people.
- Alphas focus on themselves and their success. Betas are easily manipulated.
- Alphas don’t need to prove themselves because they only need their own approval. Betas are desperate for validation and attention.
And the list goes on…
See? Although today’s western society treats everybody pretty much equally, the hierarchies are still there, and being a beta male can seriously downgrade your life.
On the other hand, being or becoming an alpha male can skyrocket it and be the best decision of your life. Alphas tend to be the happiest and most successful people, and becoming one is totally possible for every one of us.
Stay tuned because in this article you’ll also receive tips on how to do it
I believe that every single person has both alpha and beta traits at some point. Some people have the alpha side dominating their characteristics and some people are pretty much all beta.
Remember that to max out your life, you don’t need to be 100% alpha male all the time. Nobody’s perfect. Even the most popular, handsome, and charismatic guys have moments where they think and act like a beta, and that’s OK.
Just keep learning and improving, and you’ll be fine.
Alpha male vs asshole
Pay attention, because learning to separate alpha males from assholes is an important skill. Assholes have a lot of similar traits to alphas. They’re confident, they take action, and it may seem that they have it all figured out because they’re flexing their expensive clothes and cars.
However, the difference between these people is that assholes are trying to put other people (usually beta males) down to feel better about themselves. What they’re doing is that they’re pretty much always covering their own problems and beta traits. Or, maybe they’re just sadistic morons.
Someone who bullies weaker people usually tries to prove themselves to their friends. Someone who loudly compares their strengths to your weaknesses has usually problems with their self-esteem.
In a nutshell, assholes fall to the beta category, but they may seem like an alpha if you don’t know what a true alpha is like.
An alpha male also knows how to encounter an asshole and even how to be one if necessary, but he never does that to attack others. Only to protect himself and his friends etc.
Alpha male example
This scene from The Fast & The Furious Tokyo Drift is a great example of an alpha male. In the scene, Sean Boswell, the protagonist of the movie is about to leave with his car, when a girl named Cindy starts to tease him. Later, Cindy’s jealous boyfriend shows up and starts insulting Sean.
I really recommend watching the video below. See how many alpha male traits you can spot from Sean and how he separates from an asshole (Cindy’s boyfriend).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXW8_h6cvUo
Did you watch it? Great! Pay attention to how Sean replies to Cindy when she teases him about his car. He doesn’t get offended nor he tries to prove himself. He just plays along with a smirk and eventually makes Cindy really attracted to him.
This is because Sean is confident and unreactive, both of which are traits that women usually find attractive. He doesn’t need a fancy car to feel good about himself. He also doesn’t allow Cindy to get inside his head.
Cindy’s boyfriend, however, is a great example of an asshole. He tries to boast about his fancy car in front of his friends, most likely to cover his own insecurity. He even breaks Sean’s window when he loses the verbal battle.
Sean stays calm and confident all the time. He stands up for himself (and his car) regardless of being alone against an entire team. Usually, the one who’s more congruent and has a stronger mentality wins verbal battles.
Cindy’s boyfriend may seem like an alpha male, but in reality, he has several beta traits. He’s so insecure that he gets upset when his girl talks to another boy. He has an enormous urge to boast about his car to gain approval, and apparently, he can’t handle his own problems without a bunch of friends backing him up against a single person.
In my opinion, it’s such an amazing scene. Sean doesn’t race because he wants to prove himself. He races it because he loves driving and can potentially win a beautiful girl who’s attracted to him. Way more than to his boyfriend.
Risking your life in an illegal street race is a terrible idea, but Sean definitely has characteristics that every one of us would benefit from. Races like that with zero deaths happen in movies, but alpha males and assholes are real.
Common misconceptions about alpha males
There are several misconceptions about alpha males so let’s talk about them real quick.
Wannabe alphas
There are a lot of so-called wannabe alphas nowadays. They are the ones who try to act tough in front of others and shape their behavior to seem like an alpha male.
The truth is that they’re far away from alphas regardless of what they say. A true alpha male doesn’t try to act tough or keep a noise about his achievements and shallow traits. He masters his mentality and focuses on himself.
This phenomenon is common, especially among teenagers. It’s important to know how to separate true alphas from wannabe tough guys.
Money and status
No no no… If you have a high-paying career, a hot girlfriend, and a fancy car, it doesn’t mean you’re an alpha male. On the other hand, lacking those things doesn’t make you a beta male either.
What really makes you an alpha male is your mentality and characteristics. Usually, those characteristics attract love and wealth, and therefore alphas usually have them.
How to become an alpha male
Now this is a broad topic and I’ve written an entire article about it, but let’s go through the basics here:
Your mentality
Your mentality plays the biggest role in your alpha development. Mastering it takes time, but learning to see yourself and the world around you differently by consuming this kind of content is a great way to get you started.
Start by practicing the alpha characteristics that I shared in this article.
You have to achieve high self-esteem, confidence, and much more. Pay attention to your behavior to see if it’s alpha or beta and above all, master your mentality so those behaviors will become natural.
You can’t fake an alpha mentality. That’s exactly what wannabe alphas try to do. You have to transform completely who you are.
Your habits
Becoming an alpha male is much easier if you implement good habits into your life. Habits like:
- Working out
- Taking care of your body and mind by eating clean etc
- Practicing social skills
- Improving your career
- Educating yourself
- Learning to take risks and become a leader
Once you start to improve every area of your life, you’ll also start improving your mentality since your confidence and self-esteem will rise. This leads to a positive spiral of improvement in your life.
Becoming an alpha male doesn’t happen overnight, but when you start with yourself and especially your mind rather than your actions, you’ll achieve it fairly quickly.
Summary
There you have it, a guide about modern-day alpha males. I hope this post gave you lots of useful information and inspired you to start training your alpha traits.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to share them with me. See you next time!