1. Nobody is coming to save you.
Young men entering their 20s is a peculiar and defining phase of their lives.
As a child, you could rely on mum & dad to feed you, clothe you, and keep a roof over your head.
As a teen, you could rely on your teachers to educate, civilize, and keep you out of trouble.
And as a last line of defence, you could rely on society to bail you out of your ignorance with the free get-out-of-jail card for “just being a kid”.
At a certain age, if men have not gotten certain affairs in order, the society that once smiled upon him as a child now looks with a much less forgiving gaze of disgust.
This can be too hard a pill to swallow for the man who continues to naively navigate the world from the silver spoon service they have come to normalise.
Men are born with the burden of performance.
Ever wonder why women & children are getting off the sinking Titanic and you’re not?
Ever wonder why women & children are used in negotiations in hostage situations and you’re not?
Ever wonder why women & children are prioritised in emergency evacuations and you’re not?
I’m not going to mince my words.
As a man, you have no inherent value. As a man, you were born to be made. The value you had as a little boy is no longer.
You go from having 0% responsibility and 0% authority to 100% responsibility and 0% authority seemingly overnight.
See this for what it truly is, a blessing, not a curse. A man’s search for meaning has never been so elusive yet so simple.
Your meaning is embedded in the very “curse” you inherit the second you are born.
By taking personal responsibility for your own suffering, you liberate yourself from the idealistic notion we so selfishly project onto the world.
That something out in the ether is going to redeem you. The world doesn’t, and never will, owe you anything.
Nobody is going to love you enough to live your life for you. Love yourself the most by taking responsibility for your life.
Keys to Success:
- Visualize the man you want to become, in a world you want to live in.
- Visualize the man you would despise to be, in a world you’d hate to live in.
- Begin taking ownership of your suffering by articulating your pain precisely.
2. To grow you must sacrifice.
Everything in life is transactional.
The 3 hours you spend on YouTube are the same 3 hours you could have spent on anything else.
Most young men drastically underestimate the time it takes to put their life together. Being young comes with the ignorance that you have all the time in the world.
Unlike our female counterparts who are confronted with the career vs family dilemma at a much earlier age, men typically have no real sense of urgency to put the major pieces of their lives together, thus living life on autopilot is a much more enticing option.
This is the natural path to the proverbial “man-child”, a fate every man must avoid at all costs.
Pick your own poison.
What truly separates the men from the boys isn’t merely a matter of biological maturity, but an acceptance that you simply can’t have it all.
Time is constantly moving, which means life is constantly taking. As the saying goes,
“If you’re not growing, you’re dying.”
Here’s the secret to success:
Sacrifice.
Be wise not to associate sacrifice with loss, but gain. Sacrifice, when made intentionally, is negotiable.
You give a little now to get a little more later. Your 20s should primarily be spent with an apprentice mindset.
By withholding hedonistic pleasures now, you leave room to grow and develop the skills that you can take with you when life truly demands from you.
I’m not saying you should have a miserable 20s, but you must be highly conscious of what you’re willing to sacrifice today, for tomorrow – or else life will choose for you.
Keys to success:
- Make conscious of your habits that are leading to the man you despise
- Make conscious of habits that lead to the man you aspire to become.
- Begin slowly making small sacrifices regularly to achieve your desired outcome.
3. Seek Power, not Pleasure.
We live in an age of distraction.
A culture that rewards pleasure-seeking behaviour and punishes power-seeking behaviour. Men have been taught to believe that the pursuit of power is evil, that man’s ambition for power is evil, and that power itself is evil.
At the same time are under a constant barrage of cheap temptations that pray on the weakness of men they have yet to cultivate the discipline to defend against.
This creates generations of men too fearful to act on their natural inclinations and instead, are encouraged to champion their own weaknesses as a sign of their masculine strength & virtue.
The will to power itself is not evil.
It is the abuse of power to commit acts of evil from evil people that is evil. A man of strength need not prove his might by demonstrating his power, it is the weak man out of his insecurity, who will abuse his authority over others.
Therefore it is not an argument of power but one of moral character.
You want to be a good man?
You want to get ahead in life?
You need power.
Power over one’s temptations, power over one’s fears, and power over evil in the world born from mass weakness.
“It is better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener in a war.” –
Miyamoto Musashi.
Keys to success:
- Set a goal that is meaningful, challenging, promotes well-being, and is self-chosen.
- Dedicate yourself every day to accomplishing that goal.
- Once achieved, put your goal behind you and repeat the process
4. Prioritise skills over s*x.
Let’s be honest.
99% of men’s first experience with self-improvement can be traced back to a woman.
Recall the first time you were heartbroken, rejected, ghosted, made fun of or emasculated. You can’t tell me there wasn’t a fire burning deep inside that motivated the hell out of you to redeem your flaws.
Hell, ask any man what motivated them to sign up to the gym for the first time and their answer will probably be centred around women.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with men kick-starting their self-improvement journeys through superficial motivations, at least initially.
However, in order to sustain long-term growth, there comes a point where every man must mature from their desires of pure lust.
Note that I use the word “mature” and not “remove”. Sexual desire is a tremendously potent source of energy when pursued for the right reasons.
You are only as good as what you aim for.
As young men, your most valuable asset is without question, time.
You must be wise to invest your time in things that give the most bang for your buck. Pursue superficial goals, and win superficial prizes.
Acquiring skills is without a doubt, the greatest investment you could possibly make with the highest return for these reasons:
- Your skills stay with you forever and can never be taken from you.
- Skills stack, overlap and intersect in ways you cannot conceptualise.
- The internet age has made it extremely cheap and accessible to build your skill stack.
Instead of being a horny little devil 24/7, make sacrifices by prioritising the mastery of your skills that will serve you well for the rest of your life.
Keys to success:
- Build high-value skills that can be leveraged across multiple disciplines.
- Focus on building real-world projects to solidify your skills through experience.
- Lean into your natural curiosities & inclinations for unlimited energy.
5. Self-respect is king.
Everyone wants to be happy.
Everyone believes they deserve to be happy.
Everyone searches for happiness through others.
When happiness is the norm, our depression is despised. We need to revise the notion that happiness is the norm and re-frame it to fit the reality that we live in.
Life as a man is difficult. Life as a man is depressing. Life as a man is nothing but pain. And that is why life as a man is beautiful.
As mentioned earlier, nobody cares about you or your problems. You were born to be made, which means you start at zero.
Nobody ever said that being on zero was meant to feel good.
Riddle me this, most young men out of college are:
- Broke
- Zero job/life experience
- Physically & mentally immature
- Haven’t done or achieved anything noteworthy in life (yet),
- Addicted to pornography and social media,
and you want to be…happy?
The baseline IS depression.
You cannot fool nature and you cannot fool yourself. The more you think you need to be happy, the more you think there is something wrong with you when you’re not feeling it.
There is NOTHING wrong with you. Stop viewing happiness and depression as something either purely good or purely bad.
Our laziness as a species to oversimplify things is one of the main sources as to why we feel so lost and confused when things don’t feel the way they should be.
Everything is, as it should be.
Respect is the lifeblood of every man.
It isn’t happiness that you should be after, but respect. Feelings of happiness are fleeting at best, like the weather, it comes and goes.
Respect is solid, respect is earned, and respect always begins with oneself.
Dismiss it as a clash of egos if you want, respect between men is not to be taken lightly. Try disrespecting a man’s ambitions, his family, or his faith, and see what happens. People fight and die over these things and for good reason.
If you’re a young man who feels lost on where to begin, a good place to start is earning the respect of the man staring back at you in the mirror.
Never underestimate the power of self-respect and the impact it has on everything you engage with.
Keys to success:
- Begin from a place of forgiveness, your flaws are nothing more than opportunity.
- Self-respect comes from obeying your orders. Do what you say or don’t speak at all.
- Don’t do what you despise in others, you’ll hate yourself for it.
6. Embrace your solitude
Nobody wants to be a social outcast.
Even the most rebel of rebels, the most introverted of introverts, yearn to be understood, to be acknowledged and accepted by the collective from time to time.
We can never fight human nature, and humans by nature, are social creatures.
Add on to this fact, that society at large casts negative connotations to the man in solitude, and it is no mystery that most people cling to the comfort of the collective to ensure their survival.
Unfortunately, this strategy seldom works.
Often, the loneliest of men aren’t the ones isolated in their solitude, but the ones who have lost themselves in the crowd of other lost souls. It’s the blind leading the blind.
It can be a lonely climb to the top
If you’ve been following the narrative of these lessons of life, you’ll notice the emphasis on personal growth.
True individual growth can only be experienced in states of solitude.
A state that shields you from the masses, a state of silence that allows for self-examination, a state where you can hear your own inner voice without the influence of external noise.
Embracing your solitude is the key marker between feelings of loneliness (despair) and being alone to grow (hope).
You’ll find that temporary states of solitude are the much-needed 3rd person lens through which to view the world, and see clearly the paths that call out for you, and you alone to walk.
A more in-depth reading on the power of solitude can be read here.
Keys to success:
- Start saying no to things that stray you from your path
- Start saying yes to things that add value to your goals
- Practise regular journalling: examine thoughts, track progress, express gratitude
7. Surrendering is akin to death.
At the end of the day, you can choose to live life however you want.
Looking at these lessons from a high level it can easily feel overwhelming, too steep a climb, or not worth the effort.
It can be easy to fall back into old ways and lose to temptations. It can be easy to envy others’ success and resent the world for the cards you’ve been dealt.
It can be easy to have a complete nihilistic view of the world void of any meaning. And guess what, it is okay.
Life comes in waves
See life as a movie that you’re starring in.
A movie isn’t a movie if it doesn’t go through a few bumps in the road. You need to see life as an adventure and know in your heart of hearts, that the ending is one of triumph.
This is what gives meaning to your suffering, this is what gives your life purpose – the unwavering faith that there is always light at the end of the tunnel, despite what you feel now.
To live like a spectator, to cruise on autopilot, to allow the world to happen to you, is not a genre of adventure, but one of tragedy.
You have to ask yourself which fate are you more afraid of: The highest version of yourself, or the lowest because those are the options for the life of man.
Keys to success:
- Live adventurously: see your pitfalls as nothing more than a fun challenge
- When in doubt, zoom out: see yourself as a player in a much larger game
- Grow but never force: lean into rest and rejuvenate through recreation
