Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man

it’s that simple
. What we need never weakens 
or wavers—hardly ever gets more demanding or harder to
achieve. In fact, I’d argue that it’s easy for a woman to give her 
man support, love, and sex because it’s in her makeup—sup-
port and love are things that women dole out innately and 
freely. You just call it something else: nurturing. And if you 
love a man enough to nurture him, then I’d argue you love
him enough to be intimate with him. So those three things 
come natural to you. And this is all your man wants from you. 
Let me break it down.
We have to feel like somebody’s got our back—like we’re 
the king, even if we’re not. You have to understand that when
we walk out the door, the entire world is standing at the ready
to beat us down. Black, white, yellow, striped, every man leaves
W h

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the house ready to battle. He might have a job where three 
people can walk by his desk and give him a pink slip at any 
given moment—change his life in the flash of an eye. The guy 
in the position beneath your man’s may be just searching for a 
way to undermine him, so he can get the bigger pay—and he 
doesn’t give a damn about whether what he says and does can 
put your man’s job in jeopardy. Your man could be driving 
down the street minding his own business and get pulled over 
and something could happen that he has no control over, or 
someone may try to come and take what he’s got. In other 
words, a man is constantly on the lookout, sizing up the next 
man, standing at the ready to defend his and all of his gains 
(that would include you).
So when we walk back in our house, we want to be able to 
let our guard down. All we want, really, is to hear you say, 
“Baby, how was your day? Thank you for making it happen for 
us. This family needs you and wants you and is happy to have 
you.” We’ve got to feel like we’re king, even if we don’t act 
kingly. Trust me, the more you make us feel like we’re special, 
the more we’ll give in return. We’ll just try harder. Plain and 
simple. Take a page from my mother: every Sunday morning, 
my daddy cut my hair for church, and when I got out of that 
chair, and lotioned up and put on my suit and my shoes and 
walked into the living room where my mother was waiting for 
me, she would take one look at me and say, “Look at that boy’s 
haircut—boy, you clean!” or “Look at you, boy—you sharp 

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when you go to church!” I internalized the message—if I got a 
fresh haircut and I put on a nice suit, my mother would compli-
ment me, and I would walk out of the house with my shoulders 
squared and head held high because my mother said I looked 
good and she was encouraging me to be presentable. And my 
father’s chest was out as far as mine because every Sunday, she 
reminded him that he made it all possible; she kissed and 
thanked him every Sunday.
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.” Those simple words give us the strength to keep 
on doing right by you and the family. From working harder on 
the job, to bringing home that paycheck, to something as simple 
as throwing some meat on the grill on Saturday evenings or fold-
ing up a load of the laundry, we’ll do it more often if there is 
reward in it. That reward doesn’t cost you one red penny. It 
simply comes from the heart: 
Thank you, baby. I appreciate you.
You don’t know how important that is for your man; that little 
bit of encouragement makes him want to do more. You think 
because we’re hard and we don’t want to cuddle that we don’t 
need that encouragement, but we do. And the woman who 
comes along and says, “You so big and strong and you’re every-
thing I need,” well, we’re going to go get some more of that!

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rstand that our love is wholly different from a 
woman’s love. A woman’s love is emotional, nurturing, heart-
felt—sweet and kind and all encompassing. You can slice a knife 
through it, it’s so thick. And when she’s in love with you, she is 
loyal to you—she can’t see herself with someone else, because
for her, no one else will do. That’s a woman’s love.
But for men, love is loyalty. We want you to show your love
to us by being loyal. That means that no matter what, you’re 
going to stand beside us. We get laid off, we know you’re going 
to stay, even if we’re not drawing a paycheck. You get around
your girlfriends, you’re going to say with great enthusiasm, 
“That’s