The Way of the Superior Man: Summary Review & Takeaways

This is a summary review of The Way of the Superior Man containing key details about the book.

What is The Way of the Superior Man About?

The Way of the Superior Man shares lessons on how a man can grow spiritually while passionately tussling with the challenges of women, work, and sexual desire. The book explores some of the most important issues in men’s lives―from career and family to women and intimacy to love and spirituality. It offers a practical guidebook for living a life of integrity, authenticity, and freedom.

Who is the Author of The Way of the Superior Man?

David Deida is a bestselling author and a founding member of Integral Institute. He has taught and conducted research at the University of California-San Diego School of Medicine, University of California-Santa Cruz, San Jose State University, Lexington Institute in Boston, and Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, France. Some of his recent books include Blue Truth, The Enlightened Sex Manual, and the 20th Anniversary Edition of the international bestseller, The Way of the Superior Man.

What are key takeaways from The Way of the Superior Man?

Takeaway #1 Know Your Purpose In Life

What do you want to be remembered for? You probably have no idea but this is why you must take some quiet time to sit and think it through, repeating this stop as often as needed until you come up with the answer. If you continue to rush through life, going with the flow, you will not find your life's purpose. So peel back the layers on your deepest self until you know what your purpose is, then chase after it with every ounce of your being. Don't run from the fact that you may need to change every aspect of your life to achieve your purpose – Chasing your goal is worth everything, including sacrificing the wrong relationships. A woman is more likely to be attracted to you when you know where you're going and what you want but she'll test you time and time again to see if you're true to your word and your purpose which is actually a good thing!

Takeaway #2 Understand The Energy & Balance It

Despite equal rights, there's no denying that men and women are different. Male and female energy is not the same but everyone has a mix of both energies inside of them. When seeking a partner you should look to get a balance of those energies so that a harmonious relationship can flourish. If two people have neutral energies, the relationship can work but is often passionless. When a man lacks masculine energy you see a relationship with the woman wearing the trousers so to speak. It's important for men to show their masculine sides in a relationship through leading the relationship (I.e. choosing the restaurant on date night), challenging himself, facing his fears, and living with integrity. If a man can do all of this, a woman can allow her feminine side to come out.

Takeaway #3 Don't Shy Away From Drama – Enjoy It

If your relationship has drama in it, don't worry and think you're with the wrong person, embrace the ups and down and learn how to handle those heated discussions because they're never going to end no matter which partner you chose. Losing your cool and throwing accusations around doesn't work, nor does trying to fix your partner to stop her from reacting the same way about X, Y or Z. Instead you need to tame female drama with love and humour – Though by humour David Deida doesn't mean laughing at her and making fun of her. Every time she shouts, slams things around, or gives you the silent treatment you must show your love, give her a hug. Try to understand what the real problem is when she is complaining about something seemingly unimportant such as that open toothpaste tube – What does she mean deep down? Most drama erupts due to her not feeling heard, loved, and appreciated.

Book details

• Print length: 202 Pages
• Audiobook: 5 hrs and 22 mins
• Genre: Self Help, Nonfiction, Psychology

What are the chapters in The Way of the Superior Man?

Chapter One - Stop Hoping for a Completion of Anything in Life
Chapter Two - Live with an Open Heart even if it Hurts
Chapter Three - Live as if Your Father Were Dead
Chapter Four - Know Your Real Edge and Don't Fake It
Chapter Five - Always Hold To Your Deepest Realization
Chapter Six - Never Change Your Mind Just to Please a Woman
Chapter Seven - Your Purpose Must Come Before Your Relationship
Chapter Eight - Lean Just Beyond Your Edge
Chapter Nine - Do It For Love
Chapter Ten - Enjoy Your Friends' Criticism
Chapter Eleven - If You Don't Know Your Purpose, Discover It Now
Chapter Twelve - Be Willing to Change Everything in Your Life
Chapter Thirteen - Don't Use Your Family as an Excuse
Chapter Fourteen - Don't Get Lost in Tasks and Duties
Chapter Fifteen - Stop Hoping for Your Woman to Get Easier
Chapter Sixteen - Woman are not Liars
Chapter Seventeen - Praise Her
Chapter Eighteen - Tolerating Her Leads to Resenting Her
Chapter Nineteen - Don't Analyze Your Woman
Chapter Twenty - Don't Suggest That a Woman FIx Her Own Emotional Problem
Chapter Twenty-One - Stay with Her Intesity - To a Point
Chapter Twenty-Two - Don't Force the Feminine to Make Decisions
Chapter Twenty-Three - Your Attraction to the Feminine is Inevitable
Chapter Twenty-Four - Choose a Woman Woh is Your Complimentary Opposite
Chapter Twenty-Five - Know What is Important in Your Woman
Chapter Twenty-Six - You will Often Want More than One Woman
Chapter Twenty-Seven - Young Women Offer a Special Energy
Chapter Twenty-Eight - Each Woman Has a "Temperature" that can Heal or Irritate You
Chapter Twenty-Nine - Choose a Woman Who Chooses You
Chapter Thirty - What She Wants Is Not What She Says
Chapter Thirty-One - Her Complaint IS Content-Free
Chapter Thirty-Two - She Doesn't Really Want to Be Number One
Chapter Thirty-Three - Your Excellent Track Record is Meaningless to Her
Chapter Thirty-Four - She Wants to Relax in the Demonstration of Your Direction
Chapter Thirty-Five - You Are Always Searching for Freedom
Chapter Thirty-Six - Own Your Darkest Desires
Chapter Thirty-Seven - She Wants the "Killer" in You
Chapter Thirty-Eight - She Needs Your Consciousness to Match Her Energy
Chapter Thirty-Nine – The Feminine is Abundant
Chapter Forty - Allow Older Women Their Magic
Chapter Forty-One - Turn Your Lust Into Gifts
Chapter Forty-Two - Never Allow YOur Desire to Become Suppressed or Depolarized
Chapter Forty-Three - Use Her Attractiveness as a Slingshot through Appearance
Chapter Forty-Four - Ejaculation Should Be Converted or Consciously Chosen
Chapter Forty-Five - Breathe Down the Front
Chapter Forty-Six - Ejaculate Up the Spine
Chapter Forty-Seven - Take into Account the Primary Asymmetry
Chapter Forty-Eight - You are Responsible for the Growth in Intimacy
Chapter Forty-Nine - Insist on Practice and Growth
Chapter Fifty - Restore Your Purpose in Solitude and with Other Men
Chapter Fifty-One - Practice Dissolving

What are good quotes from The Way of the Superior Man?

“Every moment waited is a moment wasted....” (Meaning)

“The most loving women are the women who will test you the most. She wants you to be your fullest, most magnificent self. She won’t settle for anything less. She knows it is true of you. She knows in your deepest heart you are free, you are Shiva. Anything less than that she will torment. And, as you know, she’s quite good at it.”

“Your woman knows your weaknesses better than anybody. She knows where you will falter and give up. She knows the degree of mediocrity you will settle for. And, she knows your true capacity as a full man, a man of free consciousness and love. Her gift, if she is a good woman, is to test you with her darkest moods, over and over and over, until your consciousness is unperturbed by feminine challenge, and you are able to pervade her with your love, just as you are here to pervade the world. In response to your fearless consciousness, she will drench your world in love and light.”

“The way a man penetrates the world should be the same way he penetrates his woman: not merely for personal gain or pleasure, but to magnify love, openness, and depth.”

“You are only punishing yourself when you want to be in a relationship with a woman more than she wants to be a in a relationship with you.”

“Men who have lived significant lives are men who never waited: not for money, security, ease, or women. Feel what you want to give most as a gift, to your woman, and to the world, and do what you can to give it today. Every moment waited is a moment wasted, and each wasted moment degrades your clarity of purpose.”

“A fearful man who knows he is fearful is far more trustable than a fearful man who isn’t aware of his fear.”

“One of the deepest feminine desires in intimacy is precisely not to have to always figure it out for her man and guide him.”

“Your fear is the sharpest definition of your self. You should know it. You should feel it virtually constantly. Fear needs to become your friend so that you are no longer uncomfortable with it.”

“The feminine always seems chaotic and complicated from the perspective of the masculine. The next time you notice yourself trying to fix your woman so that she will no longer _____ (fill in the blank), relax and give her love by touching her and telling her that you love her when she is this way (whatever you filled in the blank with). Embrace her, or wrestle with her, or scream and yell for the heck of it, but make no effort to bring an end to that which pisses you off. Practice love instead of trying to bring an end to the quality that bothers you. You can’t escape the tussle with the feminine. Learn to find humor in the unending emotional drama the feminine seems to enjoy so much. The love that you magnify may realign her behavior, but your effort to fix her and your frustration never will. The world and your woman will always present you with unforeseen challenges. You are either living fully, giving your gift in the midst of those challenges, even today, or you are waiting for an imaginary future which will never come.”

“Just remember that self-discipline is not self-suppression. Suppression is when you resist and fight against your desires, keeping them as buried and unexpressed as possible. Self-discipline is when your highest desires rule your lesser desires, not through resistance, but through loving action grounded in understanding and compassion.”

“Whenever you are feeling isolated and weary, feel the present moment as if it were a woman. Feel like you are embracing a woman, physically. Feel the front of your body as if it were pressed against the front of a woman’s naked body, being filled with the delight of her feminine softness and liveliness. Feel her breasts and belly against you. Breathe deeply as if you were inhaling her intoxicating fragrance. And, while inhaling, receive deeply into your body not just her scent, but the very essence of feminine deliciousness, as if it were nourishing food for your masculine soul.”

― David Deida - The Way of the Superior Man

What are the main summary points of The Way of the Superior Man?

Here are some key summary points from the book:

• Ongoing sexual passion requires “polarity”, a masculine pole, and a feminine pole, it doesn’t matter who takes on those roles, but the dynamic and the exchange of energy is necessary for true passion. You want to recognize and accept which pole you gravitate towards.
• The masculine error is to think that eventually things will be different in some fundamental way. They won’t. It never ends. As long as life continues, the creative challenge is to tussle, play, and make love with the present moment while giving your unique gift.
• The masculine grows by challenge, but the feminine grows by praise. A man must be unabashed and expressed in his appreciation for his woman. Praise her freely…Praise motivates. Challenge doesn’t.
• The mission which leads to freedom is the priority of the masculine, whereas the search for love is the main priority of the feminine.
• Don’t wait any longer. Don’t believe in the myth of “one day when everything will be different.” Do what you love to do, what you are waiting to do, what you’ve been born to do, now. Men who have lived significant lives are men who never waited: not for money, security, ease, or women. Feel what you want to give most as a gift and do what you can to give it today. Every moment waited is a moment wasted, and each wasted moment degrades your clarity of purpose.
• To act as a superior man, you want to feel the entire situation with your whole body. A closed body is unable to sense subtle cues and signals, and therefore unable to act with mastery
• Read books that remind you of who you are. Spend time with people who inspire you and reflect the source to you. Meditate, contemplate, or pray daily so that you steep yourself in the source.
• The feminine always seems chaotic and complicated from the perspective of the masculine. Learn to find humor in the unending emotional drama the feminine seems to enjoy so much. The love that you magnify may realign her behavior, but your effort to fix her and your frustration never will.
• Trust the process of acting from your deepest wisdom. Be willing to be wrong, and grow from it.
• Lean just slightly beyond the edge of fear and discomfort. Constantly. In everything you do.
• Be capable of not knowing what to do with your life, entering a period of unknowingness and waiting for a vision or a new form of purpose to emerge. It is a normal cycle.
• Live with a hurting heart rather than a closed one. Learn to stay in the wound of pain and act with spontaneous skill and love even from that place.
• Admit to yourself that if you had to choose one or the other, the perfect intimate relationship or achieving your highest purpose in life, you would choose to succeed at your purpose. Just this self-knowledge often relieves much pressure a man feels to prioritize his relationship when, in fact, it is not his highest priority. Tell your woman that you love her, but you cannot deny your heart’s purpose. Tell her that you will spend some specific time with her in absolute attention and total presence, but then you must return to carry on your mission.
• Fear needs to become your friend, so that you are no longer uncomfortable with it. Your fear is the sharpest definition of your self. You should know it. You should feel it virtually constantly.
• Good friends should not tolerate mediocrity in one another. If you are at your edge, your men friends should respect that, but not let you off the hook. They should honor your fears, and, in love, continue to goad you beyond them, without pushing you. Choose men friends who themselves are living at their edge, facing their fears and living just beyond them. Men of this kind can love you without protecting you from the necessary confrontation with reality that your life involves.
• Don't seek fulfillment through work and woman, because you are already full. Work and intimacy are simply opportunities to give your gifts and be vanished in the bliss of the giving.
• Each purpose, each mission, is meant to be fully lived to the point where it becomes empty, boring, and useless. Then it should be discarded. Many men waste their birth seeking the completion of tasks. Nose to the grindstone, day after day, year after year, and you become a robot of duty.
• It is your gift to give. A superior man sees his woman’s moods not as a curse, but as a challenge and an amusement. The majority of a woman’s emotional problems stem from feeling unloved. So don’t stand back and analyze her, like a doctor diagnosing a patient. Give her your love immediately and unmistakably.

What do critics say?

Here's what one of the prominent reviewers had to say about the book: “David Deida’s work reveals a depth of loving the human condition and understanding its immanent spirituality I’ve seldom seen, even in a glimmer. It’s hard for me to find words with which to express my appreciation and admiration for this unique gift.” — Jenny Wade, PhD, author of Changes of Mind

* The summary points above have been concluded from the book and other public sources. The editor of this summary review made every effort to maintain information accuracy, including any published quotes, chapters, or takeaways

Chief Editor

Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.