I think it’s inherent in us guys to want respect. We demand it from our little brothers, try to wheedle it out of our big sisters, and expect it from our wife.

We breathe it like we do air and, for some of us, it’s even more important than sex. But respect and your paycheck have a lot in common: both have to be earned.

Start by not joking so much and don’t treat life/others like a joke.

While friends may laugh at you when you try to be funny-they’re doing just that: laughing at you, not respecting you.

I grew up in a heavily black (African-American) society and where it seemed that everything should make someone else laugh. However I learned early on in middle school something that they don’t teach you in textbooks: the joker never really wins. 

I stopped trying to be the class clown and took a more “hands-on,” dedicated approach to life and quickly found out that this was the kind of man I wanted to be.

A few years later, I met the most wonderful woman in the world. We’re about to celebrate our 14th anniversary this year and she recently told me that  one of the things she loved about me was my serious approach to life.

That got me thinking:

What if I was the kind of guy who had his pants hanging down and walked around cracking jokes about everything? What if my life’s ambition was to beat the next level of some video game? Would she respect me as much as she does?

While it’s okay to have a sense of humor, it’s hard to respect a man who treats his life like a joke.

The Bible says that a wife should “reverence her husband” (Eph. 5:33).  The flip side  is that a man must be the kind of man that woman can reverence. It all starts and ends with you: the man.

Ask yourself honestly: if you were someone else, would you respect yourself?