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Gentlemen, Antonio here. All right. Today, I’m going to talk about
the five rules that men can follow to make sure that they wear a ring properly. Many
of you guys, you’re perhaps getting a family heirloom, maybe you just graduated from college
and you want to wear your class ring, perhaps you’re about to get married and you’ve
never worn a ring before and you’re wondering how is this going to fit into my wardrobe.
Gentlemen, these rules are for you and once you understand them, you can bend them, you
can break them, you can use them as you wish. Now, let me just start off really quick with
my wedding ring. I wear it on my right hand and it is the number one question I get on
YouTube comments.
I have people go to my contact form they’re like, “Antonio, do you flip
your videos? Why are you wearing it on your right hand, you know, what’s the reason
behind it?” The story is in 2004, I married my wife in Kiev, Ukraine in Ukrainian Orthodox
Church and for year-and-a-half wore it on my right hand. Came to the United States and
it was until – I didn’t even think about it really until people at my MBA program asked
me, “Antonio, why do you do that? Why do you this? And it’s kind of funny, now, I
enjoy it as conversation starter, I know my why. Gentlemen, use these five rules so that
you can send a statement so that you can enjoy wearing your rings.
All right?
So, rule number one is understand that any ring you wear is going to send a meaning whether
it’d be engagement, whether it’d be wedding, whether it’d be affiliation, whether it’d
be a sign of wealth. And, yes, historically rings were worn to show wealth and your position
in society. Understand that every ring you decide to wear on your hand because of its
prominent place on your hands people will see it people will make a judgment.
Now, if you’re out interviewing and you like to wear a lot of rings, maybe one that,
you know, you end up looking like a mafia godfather.
Understand that if you’re interviewing
in a conservative industry, the person interviewing you may not say anything, but you’re basically
at the mercy of their judgment and their personal beliefs. And that’s the thing with rings
is you’ve got to understand everyone’s got an opinion about them, most people hopefully
are open-minded, but many people are going to have their prejudices their stereotypes
and they may pigeonhole you into that. So, understand rings send a message, understand
what yours are sending. Point number two, have confidence. In any
ring you’re going to wear make sure you wear it with confidence. So, you’re going
to be wearing maybe a family crest. It’s been handed down to you, understand the history,
understand how you can wear it effectively and then do so. So, family crest actually
traditionally worn on the index finger, you can wear them on the ring finger if you’re
not married, you can wear them over on your right hand.
And today, I’m not going to
get into hand sides. Guys, I’ve got a support article here, I’m going to go into more
detail on that particular subject, so go check it out.
But, guys remember wear it with confidence. You may be asking me, “Antonio how do I
do that? I’ve never worn a ring before. I’m in a conservative, you know, maybe part
of the world.” Okay. So, start wearing it for yourself initially and then, wear it around
friends and family. Maybe it could be a class ring that you’re just not used to wearing
you’re about to graduate let’s say from Annapolis at the Naval Academy there. And,
so start wearing it around your friends, wear it in an environment where it’s going to
be accepted and then, you could start to wear it out. The key with wearing a ring especially
one that goes beyond wedding rings is to wear it with confidence and then it becomes a conversation
starter. Now, that takes us to rule number three which
is basically proportion.
So, pay attention if you have large hands, you can wear large
rings. Smaller rings are going to look a little bit off on you, but if you have smaller hands,
you’re going to want to avoid overly sized rings especially if you’re getting one handed
down to you or if you’re going to get a class ring. Those tend to be a little bit
larger maybe one if you’re part of the Mason lodge or something like that. Just make sure
that you go for one that is going to be in proportion to your hands.
Smaller hands smaller
rings, larger hands larger rings. Pretty simple. Now, let’s get to balance. Balance is different
than proportion. Balance is actually wearing pieces and wearing jewelry in a sense to balance
out. So, if you’re going to have one ring maybe consider wearing your watch on the opposite
side. If you’re going to bring in another ring I could probably add a ring over here
and then, if I – or if I – I could even have two rings on this side because I’m
wearing the watch. What you want to avoid is having your watch, five rings on one hand
and then the other hand completely without anything. So, that goes with balance, bracelets
can help with this, just understand that it all works together and that takes us to rule
number five which matching metals. You don’t have to exactly match metals.
Some guys decide to go for a ring that actually has a bit of gold and silver in it.
Me, personally
I’m a silver man. I am – I would say I’m cool tone in general, I can look at my arms
and I can see I’ve got – I can see my blue veins in here, that to me is an indicator.
Also, I naturally have always gravitated towards silver, platinum, things like that.
[0:05:00] So, all of my metals I like to match up. If
you’re going to be a gold man and you like warmer tones, then go ahead and go for gold.
Now, mixing them up a bit just to understand that to make it a little bit more complicated,
it’s just something that if you understand the rule, I like to keep it simple, but if
you want to break it, go for it.
So, we’ve talked about the five rules and,
again, I go into more detail in the article here. Now, let me talk about the symbolism
and the meaning for each finger. Now, I also have another video here, I’ve talked about
this a couple of years ago, I go into a lot of detail in this video. However, quickly
I’m going to go over it now. So, the thumb, the thumb is traditionally
symbol to your character. And, you know, so if you have a straight thumb straight character,
too crooked of a thumb you are actually believed to be crooked. Now, when it comes to rings,
rings on the thumb are very rare.
They used to historically if you go back to Asia, whenever
a bowman who would pull back on the string of a bow, he actually used to have a thumb
ring which would help him do that. But, nowadays very rare, if you do wear one on your thumb,
it’s considered to be more of a creative feel, you know, if you want to bring that
in. But, being on your thumb it may feel a little bit odd, so it would be something you’re
going to want to get used to. Now, let’s get to the pinky. The pinky is
associated with the god Mercury.
It’s also associated with intelligence. So, that if
you want to wear a pinky finger, that could be something that you could bring in something
that maybe has a small family crest on it. Now, for some reason it’s associated with,
you know, crime bosses and mafia, I don’t know I wasn’t able to find, you know, it
maybe something that they picked up. I think a man can wear it tastefully. They key with
these two fingers and why I started with them now is that they’re on the edges of the
hand.
Anything you wear here will be easier to see and therefore will be a little bit
flashier, so I like to keep them down a little bit.
Now, let’s talk about the index finger. Traditionally, this was a finger that many
noblemen; kings, dukes, you know, senators, they would wear rings on this finger. It is
the finger of power and is associated with the god Jupiter, hence the king of the gods.
I think if you’re going to wear a class ring or if you’re going to wear a family
ring, this is also a ring you can consider. You could also wear on the same hand and it
will be a bit balance, you’ll have a little bit of space between them.
Now, let’s get to the middle finger.
This is associated with Saturn and it really stands
about for – for basically being balanced. Now, let’s get to the ring finger. The ring
finger traditionally in western – in western world, the left hand has been associated with
romanticism with the moon. It’s also associated with creativity. Again, I, you know, East
Orthodox Church Ukraine I wear it over here, but for most of people in North America, they’re
going to wear it over here their wedding ring.
You also see sometimes engagement rings. Now,
I know a lot of you guys have more questions about, okay, Antonio, types of rings, metals,
stones, all of those details, I’m going to go into more detail right here in this
article, go check it out. And, guys let me know what you think in the
comments. I would love to hear from you what are your thoughts on rings: Should men be
able to wear multiple rings? Do you wear multiple rings? I would love to hear from you guys.
I’ll see you in the comments. Take care. See you in the next video.
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