I don't have any of Deida's books, but it's possible we've had similar influences, since I do read a lot of self-help books. A lot of people have recommended Deida's material to me since I started blogging, possibly because we seem to have similar philosophies. However, I usually don't bother to look into other people's work when I'm told I sound like so-and-so, since I figure there's not as much to learn if we already share similar ideas. I prefer to read sources that have different philosophies than mine.
The "How to Be a Man" article is a summary piece based on previous articles I've written. I've published a great deal of material on making decisions, defining your life purpose, making failure your friend, being confident, taking initiative, using sex energy, facing fear, accepting responsibility, and making peace with death. You'll find multiple articles on all of those topics in the archives. This article brings many of those ideas together in one place.
Point #8 in the article wasn't based on previous material. That was something new I decided to write about, based on my own personal experience. But all the other points can be traced to previously published articles.
The only really different thing about this article is that I used an atypical style as an experiment. I normally write articles in first and second person, but for this article I opted to use third person. I actually wrote the first draft in second person, and then I switched to third person at the last minute. I thought it gave the article an interesting tone, so I kept it. Perhaps that made it sound like I was using a different voice.
I haven't read any books in the Pick-up Artist field (such as The Game), but I seem to get an unusual amount of traffic from PUA sites. For some reason a number of my articles have become popular in that community, especially those that deal with building confidence and overcoming fear. I see thousands of visitors from such sites in my traffic logs every month. Most of the PUA stuff I've seen online seems a bit low on the consciousness scale though, so it isn't something I care to write about directly.
FWIW people have also told me I sound a lot like Byron Katie at times, but I've never read any of her work either.
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