Book Summary: Steve Harvey 2009 (Act like a lady, Think like a man) Part 1

(This book is dedicated to all women. My hope is to empower you with a wide-open look into the minds of men.)

Contents:

Introduction: Everything you need to know about men and relationship is right here.

`                 -That women need a voice, someone to help get them through and decipher the muck, so they can get what they’re truly after that women need a voice, someone to help get them through and decipher the muck, so they can get what they’re truly after.

                  -No matter how good you are to a man, no matter how good you are for him, until you understand what his makeup is, what drives him, what motivates him, and how he loves, you will be vulnerable to his deception and the games he plays.

ONE: THE MINDSET OF A MAN

1 What Drives Men

                  - Basic DNA of manhood- essential truths: men are driven by who they are (name/title), what they do (work for), and how much they make. And until a man does these things, women only fit into the cracks of his life.

                  -I am never late for work, and I’ve never once missed a gig. Why? Because when I wake up, my dream is in check; I’m living it outlive and in color every day. Who I am is certain—I’m Steve Harvey. What I do is certain: comedy. And how much I make is right in line with what I’ve always wanted for my family and me.

                  - Encoded in the DNA of the male species is that we are to be the provider and the protector of the family, and everything we do is geared toward ensuring we can make this happen. This is all any man wants; anything less, and he doesn’t feel like a man. We want the bragging rights—the right to say, “I’m number one.” Women don’t seem to care about this so much. But for us men? It’s everything.

                  -Because in his world, he’s being judged by other men, based on who he is, what he does, and how much he makes. That affects his mood. Because when he reaches the level of success he’s hoping to reach, he’ll be a better, happier man for it—and you will be happy, too.

2 Our Love Isn’t Like Your Love

                  -A woman’s love—it stands the test of time, logic, and all circumstance. It is kind and compassionate, patient and nurturing, generous and sweet and unconditional. And this is. exactly how you all expect us men to love you in return. Well, I’m here to tell you that expecting that kind of love— that perfection—from a man is unrealistic. Because a man’s love isn’t like a woman’s love.

                  -I’m not saying that we’re not capable of loving. I’m just saying that a man’s love is different— much more simple, direct, and probably a little harder to come by. How do you know when a man loves you? Simple. “The Three Ps of Love-Profess, Provide, and Protect.”:

                                    1. Profess- The moment he lays claim to you in front of  people who mean something to him in his life or anybody, “Look, man, this is my woman”- will give you a title of the universal code for “offlimits.”. Also his voice know that he’s proud of being with you, and that he has plans for you /long-term/committed.

                                    2. Provide-to be the provider. Questioned his ability might as well drop-kick his ego into an early grave. The more he can provide for his woman and his kids, the bigger and more alive he feels. Later, buying something for himself far below his responsibility to provide for his family or to make sure the woman he loves has what she needs. This man will provide for you all these things with no limits. And the easiest way to help him get that high is to let him provide for you. This man will provide for you all these things with no limits

                                    3. Protect-Your man will destroy anything and everything in his path to make sure that whoever disrespected you pays for it. Protection isn’t just about using brute, physical force against someone, though. A man who truly cares about or loves you can and will protect you in other ways, whether it be with advice, or stepping up to perform a task that he thinks is too dangerous for you to do.

3 The Three Things Every Man Needs: Support, Loyalty, and the Cookie

                                    1.Your support-Every man leaves the housed ready to battle. A man needs that from his woman—he needs her to say, “Baby, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you do for me and the kids.”, that little bit of encouragement makes him want to do more.

                                    2. Your loyalty-for men, love is loyalty. That means that no matter what, you’re going to stand beside us. If your loyalty is real and unimpeachable, that man will kill concrete for you. He ain’t going no damn where.

                                    3. The cookie- Men. Need. Sex. We love it. It’s how we plug in, recharge, and reconnect. We need to be physically engaged with the woman we love, the woman who is loyal to us and supports us, and the way that we do that is by making love. The emotional stuff—the talking, the cuddling, the holding hands, and bonding, that’s y’all’s thing.

4 “We Need to Talk,” and Other Words That Make Men Run for Cover

                  -Communicating, nurturing, listening to problems, and trying to understand them without any obligation to fix them is simply not what boys are raised to do. We don’t vent. We just want to fix whatever situation is upsetting the balance. End of conversation. It’s that simple for us.

                  -The conversation with “we need to talk.”. They trying to figure out what we did wrong, when we did it, and how we’re going to fix it so that we’re not in trouble anymore. How about start the conversation with something simple, like, “Honey, look, nothing is really wrong—I just want to tell somebody something.” That’s a great opening line; it allows us to relax, take our foot down from the witness stand, put away our “fix it” tools, and sit and listen to what you have to say.

TWO: WHY MEN DO WHAT THEY DO

5 First Things First: He Wants to Sleep with You

                  -It’s easy: when a man approaches you, he has a plan. And the main plan is to sleep with you, or to find out what it takes to sleep with you. Women love to sit and talk for no apparent reason but to talk, but we men, we don’t have time for it.

                  - Two things: (1) if you’re willing to sleep with him, and (2) if you are, how much it will cost to get you to sleep with him-determine exactly how much he has to invest to get what he wants (your requirements).

                  - “What is your plan?” “I don’t have no plan,” he said. “Then what are you doing?” my father-in-law asked. “But what’s your plan? Where is this going?” my father-in law snapped back. “Let’s share that with her, that you’re just ‘kicking it.’ Let’s see how she feels being the kicked one. Let’s take that back to her.”

                  -What’s your price? If you let him know up front, he will let you know up front if it’s too high a price for him to pay. And then you can move on.

6 Sports Fish vs. Keepers: How Men Distinguish Between the Marrying Types and the Playthings

                  -See, men are, by nature, hunters, and women have been put in the position of being the prey. Think about it: it used to be that a man “picked” a wife, a man “asked” a woman to dinner, a man had to get “permission” from a woman’s father to have her hand in marriage, and even, in some cases, to date her. We pursued—in fact, we’ve been taught all our lives that it was not only a good thing to chase women, but natural.

                  - When a man approaches you, you’re the one with total control over the situation: it’s not the guy who determines whether you’re a sports fish or a keeper—it’s you.

                                    1. A sports fish-a throwback- she types of “date and see how it goes,” that he can treat her just any old kind of way, he will do just that. Men will stand in line to sign up for that, believe me.

                                    2. A Keeper-Never gives in easily, and the standards/requirements start the moment you open your mouth. She commands—not demands—respect, just by the way she carries herself. Men automatically know from the moment she opens her mouth that if they want her, they’ll have to get in line with her standards and requirements, or keep it moving because she’s done with the games and isn’t interested in playing.

                  -More examples:

                                    1. A woman who commands respect is a keeper; a woman who lets men get away with disrespecting her is a throwback

                                    2. A woman who is dressed appropriately—has her goodies reasonably covered, but is still sexy, is a keeper; a woman who is scantily clad and dripping sex is a throwback.

                                    3. A woman who won’t let you feel all over her body while you’re dancing is a keeper; a woman who drops it like it’s hot and puts on a dance floor performance that would make video vixen Karrine Steffans blush is a throwback.

                                    4. A woman who takes a man’s number but doesn’t give him her own is a keeper; a woman who hands out her home, work, and cell phone numbers and e-mail and home addresses to a man who’s done nothing more than buy her a drink and ask how he can reach her is a throwback.

                                    5. A woman who can hold a respectful, respectable conversation with a man and his mother is a keeper; a woman who shudders at the prospect of having to talk to the matriarch of a man’s family is a throwback.

                                    6. A woman who can adapt to any situation thrown at her—she can hold her own at the PTA meeting, in the boardroom, in a restaurant, at a sporting event— is a keeper; a woman who can’t put together a coherent sentence or makes it clear she has no interest in doing so is a throwback.

                                    7. A woman who knows she wants to be married and raise a family and lets a man know this up front is a keeper; a woman who doesn’t have a plan for her relationship life beyond next weekend is a throwback.

                                    8. A woman whom we can introduce to our friends and family is a keeper; a woman we don’t even bother introducing to our friends or family is a throwback.

                                    9. A woman who smiles and takes care of herself and is generally happy with her life is a keeper; a woman who doesn’t take care of herself and is sour all the time, has an attitude wider than all the ocean, and doesn’t hesitate to lay somebody out for the slightest transgression is a throwback.

                                    10. A woman who shows her appreciation for all that you do for her is a keeper; a woman who acts like nothing you do can make her happy is a throwback.

                                    11. A woman who is loyal is a keeper; a woman who always has her eye out for the next best thing is a throwback.

                                    12. A woman who understands that a man validates his manhood by who he is, what he does, and how much he makes, and who knows how to finesse her relationship so that her man feels like he’s handling his business is a keeper; a woman who wields her paycheck and influence like a sword and belittles his career and financial contributions is a throwback.

                  -How to tell if you’ve meet someone looking for a keeper or a throwback:

                                    1. If his conversation with you is extremely superficial, and never seems to graduate beyond the surface, he’s sport fishing; if he genuinely seems interested in your needs, life, desires, and future, then he’s looking for a keeper.

                                    2. If he laughs off your requirements and standards, then he’s sport fishing; if he seems willing to abide by your rules, and follows through on them, then he’s looking for a keeper.

                                    3. If he takes your phone number but waits longer than twenty-four hours to call, he’s sport fishing; if he calls you right away, he’s showing that he’s genuinely interested in you, and is most likely looking for a keeper.

                                    4. If he takes you out on a date and lets you pay, or only kicks in his portion of the bill, he’s sport fishing; if he pays the bill, he’s showing that he’s willing to provide for you, which means he’s likely looking for a keeper.

                                    5. If he tells you he’s going to be somewhere at a certain time, and he consistently shows up late without so much as the courtesy of a phone call, he’s probably sport fishing; if he shows up when he’s supposed to, he’s looking for a keeper.

                                    6. If you never meet his friends, family, co-workers, or other  people who are important to him, he’s sport fishing; if he introduces you to his  people, he might be looking for a keeper.

                                    7. If he keeps offering up excuses for why he can’t meet your friends and family, he’s sport fishing; if he agrees to go to the family barbecue or a social event where he will be introduced to family, friends, and co-workers, he might consider you a keeper.

                                    8. If he cringes at the mere mention of children, he’s sport fishing; if he’s willing to meet your kids and shows up with gifts and can relate to them in a way that makes them comfortable with him, then he might consider you and your kids keepers.

                                    9. If he does not have himself together financially, emotionally, and spiritually, he may be sport fishing; if he is capable of providing and protecting his potential family the way a real man should, then he might be searching for a keeper.

                                    10. If he lobbies for an “open” relationship and says he’s cool with you seeing other  people, then he’s sport fishing; if he wants your relationship to be exclusive and he agrees to date only you, he considers you a keeper.

7 Mama’s Boys

                  - “Did I Marry a Man or a Boy?”, feel like they just can’t compete with The Other Woman—the mother.

                  - The only thing you have to do is establish the rules, say them out loud early in the relationship, and make sure he sticks to them. But if you don’t have any standards or requirements, guess whose rules he’s going to follow? That’s right, his mother’s. Put on a rule: (So you have to do is speak up)

                                    1. You need to respect me.

2. You must put me and our kids after God and above all others.

3. Be clear to everyone involved in our lives that they will respect your relationship—and me.

                  -First, acknowledge that you can’t compete with this woman. But you most certainly can work with your man and his mom by controlling what you do have control over—by using your powers to set standards and requirements that he needs to abide by as the two of you work to create a family or to blend your families together.

8 Why Men Cheat

                  -But if not—if a man doesn’t see you fitting into his life plan—he won’t even bother with all of the covering up and the chitchat after he gets found out. He’ll simply tell you that he was sleeping with someone else because. . .he hasn’t become who he wants and needs to be or found who he truly wants. You may think this is a cop-out, but it is the reality.

                  -In other words, what’s back at the house has become hohum—routine. And this man is missing the spark that used to be there. You’ve changed. (He knows he’s changed, too, but we’re not talking about him, we’re talking about you.)

                  - Yes, these are the women who have no standards and requirements and who suffer from serious selfesteem issues, making themselves willing to cheat and available to be cheated on. If those women took themselves out of the cheater’s circle, the incidence of cheating would be cut seriously down.