For generations, the life skills that men have been expected to master have been focused on the outdoors. Make a shelter in the forest, start a fire using two sticks and friction, learn how to tickle trout when you’ve left the fly rod at home. These are all very well, but they don’t exactly equip you for life in the 21st century when tents, pocket lighters and supermarket fish fillets are all available.
So maybe it would be better to devote your time to learning some other skills that would be more in keeping with the times. Skills like these, for example.
Learn how to play in an online casino
Casinos conjure up images of class and style. If you’re in the mood for a little gambling action, these days you may be more likely to head for an online casino website than to get suited and booted and head for a brick and mortar alternative. After all, there will be all the games that you want to play, from slots to roulette and from blackjack to poker. It will also probably offer you a live casino option with real dealers playing in real time. So it’s going to pay to learn your way around one of these sites. Don’t worry, they make things pretty easy and intuitive and you’ll quickly pick things up.
Do the perfect pitch
You don’t need to be a Madison Avenue ad-man to need this one. Life’s a long series of pitches. You need a strong pitch to sell yourself to get that job, date, or freelance contract. So it’s going to pay you back many times over if you sharpen up your presentation skills. Remember, to really make an impression, it’s got to have a compelling narrative with a knockout beginning, an interesting middle and a conclusion that leaves your audience with only one option: to choose you. A handy trick is also to imagine that you’re playing a character who’s delivering the pitch; it gives you the freedom to be just that bit more performative.
Bake your own sourdough from scratch
Seems you can’t go anywhere these days without coming across sourdough. With artisan bakeries charging upwards of $6 a loaf for the crusty treat, wouldn’t it be a better idea to make your own? There’s a lot of hype about how difficult it is to make the bread, but get the right recipe and you’ll discover that it’s actually pretty easy. The hardest part is making the starter that replaces the yeast in other kinds of bread. When you crack that, there’ll be no looking back!
Cook the perfect steak
Once you’ve got to grips with baking the perfect sourdough, it’s time to get to work on what to put in a sandwich. We might have moved on from being hunter-gatherers, but many of us still have the primal desire to cook meat. So here’s how to cook a steak to perfection. First, choose your cut; ribeye or sirloin for every day, fillet for best. Before cooking, leave the steak out of the refrigerator long enough to reach room temperature. Season well with oil, pepper and salt and get a grill pan really hot. For a 1” thick steak cooked medium rare, turn every minute for four minutes, remove from the pan and rest for five minutes. Enjoy!
Master meditation
Life’s stressful. More so today than almost any other time in the past. So we all need to take a break sometime to regroup and relax. Being able to step away and meditate is a great way to do this. It doesn’t have to be spiritual, and you don’t have to contort your body into the lotus position. You just need to sit quietly and peacefully and control your breathing. Before you know it, you’ll be feeling better in mind, body, and spirit.
Put all these skills together and you’re going to be ready for virtually anything. And isn’t that exactly what being a truly 21st century man is all about?