PNTV - The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida
17 Dec 2025 · 11 min
This is a single-episode spoken summary by Brian Johnson of David Deida's The Way of the Superior Man. Johnson highlights the book's central call for men to live with purpose (a mission), to stop making excuses, to allow purpose to evolve (peeling concentric layers toward a core dharma), and to practice creative discipline and service to reduce stress. He relates a personal anecdote about selling his previous company after reading the book, and notes Deida's practical advice on sexuality and on praising women's radiance. The episode closes with promotion for Johnson's newsletter and membership products.
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Hey, this is Brian. Welcome to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today we've got the way of the superior man. You can't see it because I took off the front cover, which is actually really cool. And this is by David Data. Awesome book. Good guy. Written a lot of stuff on intimacy, sexual relationships, polarity between the masculine and the feminine. In this book, the Way the superior man subtitle is a spiritual guide to mastering the challenges of women, work and sexual desire. Awesome book. It's really just one big idea after another and it was super transformational for me. I read it. Oh, man. What is it? About three and a half years ago, maybe just about three years ago, when I was running my last business and I took a little bit of time off. Read this one with Deepak Chopra's seven spiritual models of success and Tim Ferriss four hour workweek and just deeply transformed me. And I got clarity that it was time for me to sell the business I was running and really live my deepest purpose, which is what this book is all about, fundamentally, is embracing our masculine. This one's for the men and for the women who have relationships with men. Hopefully you will dig it as well and your men will dig it. So the idea here is to embrace our masculine essence, to be purposeful, confident, driven, to live with deep integrity and a sense of humor, to be spontaneous and sensitive. This is the way of the superior man. And the core idea, the first big idea we're going to talk about is an idea around missions. We've got to have a mission. The masculine essence within us in the superior men is this sense of purpose, the sense of mission. He says it's imperative that you know where you want to go, know where you are, know where you want to go and how you're going to get there. If you don't know one of those things, figure it out. That's absolutely essential. It's from a great chapter all about that. The chapter is called if you don't know your purpose, discover it. Now. Dado's super intense and if you're really conservative, he's going to definitely push your edges. But I find him truly just great, provoking, and gets me to my edge and really kind of check in on my value, see if I'm living in integrity with them. Another one of his big ideas is to quit making excuses. Superior men do not make excuses. They do not blame family, lack of money, family responsibilities, lack of money, or anything else for not pursuing Their creative endeavors for not pursuing their mission in life. He says the reality is the men who do that simply don't have the courage to step up and actually live their mission. So then they make excuses about it.
Right?
It's a really powerful thing if you think about it.
It's true.
So check in on that. And it's also everything we've been talking about. Victim versus creator. And even more intense for the men and for the masculine energy and the demonstration of that energy. So basically, it's all about whether or not we have creative discipline. Don't make excuses. Just create the discipline in your life to consistently check in and show up and just rock it. He talks about the fact that we need to be willing to change. And in this section, I take up a couple of pages, actually to describe probably the most poignant part of this book for me that really changed my life. I was reading this, as I mentioned, during a time when I decided to sell my business. And he really captured something that was powerful for me. I had started this company, Zod. It's a social networking site all about changing the world, getting people together who are passionate about making a difference. And into all these things that we talk about all the time. And I loved it. Raised $3 million from some incredible investors. Had an awesome small team, had tens of thousands of people. I don't even know how many we had at that time. 75,000, maybe at that point in our community who are super passionate. Just a real deep vibrance. And I found that after putting, you know, three plus years into it, raising that money, and kind of putting all my heart and soul into it, I was losing a bit of the energy. And there's various reasons for that. But as I was reading the book, he described it, described where I was beautifully. And he said that the superior man. There's a process of unfolding our destiny and. And almost peeling away layers of our purpose. And that we pursue our current purpose with passion and with intensity and with vitality and energy. And there often comes a point where we've kind of exhausted that. That dharma, that karma. And what we do is we kind of go in concentric circles from this far away from the center. The absolute purpose of why we're here on this planet. And we start here, and then we fully do that. And then we go here. We have another concentric circle. Then we move in and we have another circle. Then we have another circle. And we're peeling away these layers of purpose that had meaning. They were awesome For a certain stage of development. But each time we move nearer and nearer to our core intention, our core purpose for life. And he describes it in a really playful way. And he talks about the fact that you kind of reach a point where you suddenly have no interest whatsoever for a mission that just recently totally inspired you.
Right?
And I mentioned there's five different things. He says, look out for these. And I jokingly say in the note, check, check, check.
I experienced these.
You know, you don't have any regrets for leaving it. It feels good. You feel an increase in energy just imagining being done with that part of your purpose. And then he says, you know, your project almost seems silly, like wallpapering your house with gas station receipts. And this is a project that deeply inspired you very recently. And I read this, and it was very liberating for me. And he talks about it in the book, the fact that we've got to give ourselves freedom to evolve. Oftentimes we think that when we start something. I certainly thought that project was going to be the next 50 years for me. And I realized that. I don't talk about this in the note, but I also realized later that there was a process that Gay Hendricks, a friend and mentor of mine who I talk about often, he says, making the big leap from your excellence zone into your zone of genius. Incompetence, competence, excellence, where most of us hang out, into genius, the zone of genius. And what I realized was I was making a big leap. I realized this in hindsight, of course, a big leap from my zone of excellence. I was pretty good at building businesses to my zone of genius, immersing myself in wisdom, studying life, optimal living, philosophy, mysticism, creativity, you know, abundance, creation, relationships, all the things that go into creating an extraordinary life, and then sharing that with this level of intensity and passion and hopefully evolving skill and aptitude. And that that was more in line, closer to my target, my bullseye, than what I was doing, which was really cool and much closer than my prior iterations, but wasn't quite it. So having the courage to step up and to step through a purpose that has fulfilled itself in your life is a really big idea, both for superior men and superior women, but really, really powerful idea. So my question in the note is, what do you need to be willing to change in your life? Is there kind of a layer you need to let go of? Nietzsche says, the snake that cannot shed its skin must perish. Joseph Campbell says, in order to have a resurrection into the next version of ourselves, we. We have to have a crucifixion. We have to be willing to die, to to kill the prior version of ourselves. To be born to the next greatest version of ourselves. Really powerful ideas. He's got so much in here. A couple more. He says anytime you find yourself kind of contracted and sluggish and tired and stressed and anxious and depressed, it's because you're contracting into yourself. The way to address that is to expand by giving yourself to the world. Really cool idea. I know that the only times I really get stressed I are twofold. When I'm too impatient, when I need results I have no control over to come to fruition now versus focusing on creating and having my creative production levels which are within my control. Rocking and letting the results take care of themselves. So when I get impatient and attach to the results, number one, I get stressed and then I switch my attention to my productivity levels. And the other way I get stressed is when it's about me too much and I'm focused on me, which tends to tie into this result orientation. So the solution for me is to think about how I can serve. What can I do to give my gifts to the world? What can I do to give my gifts to Alexander, my goddess, my wife? And I love saying that and really powerful stuff. So if you're feeling stressed, give yourself more. He's got a lot of ideas on sexuality, sexual technique practice, stuff like that in the book, I don't go into them in the notebook. Talk more about the psychology. And he says the first most important thing you got to do is get your head in order, get your life in order. That's going to make you the most extraordinary lover. The techniques are secondary and they're fun. So if you want to learn more, check this out and check out other books he has. And finally, he talks about praising your woman. If you want to see a woman's radiance expand and you want to see more of her radiance, her joy, her playfulness, her sensuality, her depth, her beauty, her power. Then praise those qualities often every day. As you appreciate something, it appreciates in value. We can talk about this for quite a while longer. We're going to leave it at that. Hope you dug it. Here's to being a superior man or being with a superior man. Hope you enjoyed. Have an awesome day. Look forward to sharing more with you soon. See you.
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