There exists an ingredient that will bring a man success in anything he seeks. His only limitations are those he places upon himself – his imagination, his capacity to dream, his capability to work. It’s an ingredient needed to build six pack abs, to construct the body of an Adonis, or to make millions.
It’s an ingredient that each of us has the capacity to possess and to use. It’s a talent we’re born with, but also one we can cultivate. It’s a weapon that the 1% know, understand, and revere, while the 99% are afraid to wield. The 99% are too weak to use it. Those that obide by this law, this ingredient, must be strong. They may be insane, even irrational, but they possess courage. Those that fail to adhere to this principle may be more sane, they are also weaker, they are the pussy, the coward, the snitch.
Each of us has both within us. On some level we can all be a coward, and we can all be a warrior. But we can only be one, in the end. What we are will be determined not in a moment, but in the culmination of every moment in our lives. Our actions determine the man we are to be, and the success we will acheive.
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” ~ Calvin Coolidge
Warrior.
The Successful
When I write about the successful, I’m not only talking about those successful in business – or in the eyes of societ – but the father who had the balls not to cheat on his wife, to be there for his kids, loving both every day, persistently. I’m talking about the mother who did everything for her kids to make sure they grew up to be good people.
I’m talking about the writer, the actor, the garbage man, the painter, the warrior who wasn’t just a warrior for a day, but every day of his or her life. Refusing to quit. Failing not to fail, but to crumble and quit after each failure presents itself in her life. Success isn’t an act, it’s a habit. If it were an act, lottery winners would be seen as successful, but they aren’t, they’re seen as someone with a horseshoe up their ass, nothing more.
Persistence
Persistence is the ingredient, the law, the rule that the 1% have, and the 99% are too afraid to abide by. The majority of us quit. When something doesn’t go our way – even if that something lasts for 20 years – we quit. We don’t have what it takes. We’re weak. Another way to look at it is that those who quit are rational, those who persist are irrational, even insane.
What rational man would continue working on a dream for 10 years with no sign of great success? Edison, Lincoln, Mandela, Pressfield, John Adams, Napoleon Hill, to name a few. Great success isn’t acquired by the rational. The man who takes a step back, weighs his options, and moves towards what makes the most sense. No! Success, of any great degree, is acquired by the man who persists 9 years beyond when others have already quit. It’s taken by the man who attempts to conquer what no other man dared to before him.
The man who does what’s necessary, not what’s easy.
Persistence is hard, but so is life. To choose the more difficult route isn’t for everyone, but it is the more rewarding road.
The Resistance
So many resist success, a resistence created most often by fear, that manifests itself in distraction, half-hearted attempts at greatness, lies to one’s self, and laziness. We’re afraid of being rejected by a tribe that doesn’t exist – a group of people who are just as fucked up as we are, who have the same fears as we do.
We’re afraid of being measured. If we give it our all, we’ll be judged, and that’s scary. We’re afraid of failure, but we’re also afraid of success.
Most of us are in this resistence. We find excuses not to go to the gym, or if we go we’re distracted, and we fail to give it our all. We create excuses to avoid eating right. We are distracted from our art – that which we’re trying to perfect – by our unhealthy desire to check our phone, facebook, or twitter. We’re taken from our task by people who say that we can’t. WE give them power over what we can and can’t accomplish.
We’re weak. We’re a pussy. We’re all a part of our own resistence. Some have elevated above it and have accomplished what they want to accomplished, but the resistence is always there, threatenning to pull us back down to its depths.
Facebook, Twitter, & Texting vs Success
TV used to be – and still is in many cases – the greatest obstacle to persistence. Seriously. We’d spend hours in front of the TV, away from who we’re creating. Today, Facebook, Twitter, and texting are the viruses that hold so many of us back from doing great work.
We bring our phones to the gym, never spending 5 minutes away from the hypnotic trance of that bright little screen. Facebook needs to be monitored like a mother observes her baby. We constantly post what we do, or check up on what others are doing, never fully in the moment of what we’re focused on or where we are. Twitter is the same.
We’re vested in the lives of others as much as we are our own lives. We’re discouraged by the awesome pictures our friends post, when we have no cool pics of our own to post. We incecently creep on the girl we like, waiting to see if she’s talking to or with another guy. We get down because we missed out on a party that we weren’t invited to, as we scroll through the pics of the drooling drunks, eyes half-open as they seem – in our eyes – to be having the time of their lives.
We’re physically and emotionally distracted by these things. They zap our energy, taking us away from where we should be; the present!
Some news for you, that girl can do whatever she wants, she should be able to do ANYTHING, and have it not effect your day. Be happy of the pics your friends post if they’re doing awesome things, then work hard to create your own epic collage. You’re not missing out on anything but the life you should be living when you check Twitter or Facebook or your phone. They’re cancers of success.
Live life in the persent, in the tangible, not on the internet. If Facebook, Twitter, or your phone take you away from your writing, learning, reading, training, and perfecting your craft, do the following:
1. Put your phone on mute and leave it out of sight. I do this every day, and it’s done wonders. I miss nothing of importance, and I get more work done in less time at a higher quality.
2. When you’re writing, or doing work that requires no internet, turn it off. I also use this app that allows me to have timed offline sessions: Freedom – http://macfreedom.com
This is an app I use to block all social media sites, or sites – like espn or sherdog – that can take me away from my work: Anti-social – http://anti-social.cc
3. Create a space dedicated to one thing, and one thing alone. If you can work from home, have your office clean, neat, and free of any possible distraction. No TV. This may even mean no internet access, depending on your line of work.
4. Have a strict to do list of things you have to get done in a day for that day to be a success. Start with the most important – those tasks that require creativity – and do them first. Then work your way down to the medial.
5. Set a schedule. This is especially important for training. Lift at the same time of the day, the same days of the week. Success isn’t an act, but a habit.
6. Invest in yourself (Big One).
I equate the start of my business not with the beginning of this site, rather, with an investment I made last November. I spent more money than I had to head down to Austin, TX, for an event. The event was a “seminar” – I guess you’d call it – to help entrepreneurs build their businesses. I was met there by friends who’d already reached an impressive level of success in their business, success that I wanted to accomplish with mine.
After that innitial investment – where I learned A TON – I gave away my training business, and devoted everything to this company, and providing more and more value to you, the readers.
I give the start of my transformation to another investment, one where I bought a mentor with my time. I got a job at the gym of the guy who I wanted to mentor me. After a few weeks under his tutilage, I started gaining muscle for the first time in my life. 32 weeks later, I’d gained 32 pounds of lean muscle – check out my story here.
7. Let fear of acheiving nothing, outweigh your fear of failure. Think 40 years down the road…
Imagine if by then, you’ve accomplished nothing you set out to accomplish. The only way to change that dreary future is to start now, and persist.
Life is What You Make of It
Marcus Aurelius often says it better than any other man…
“To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.”…
“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”…
“Our life is what our thoughts make it.”…
“Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.”…
“The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”…
“I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others”…
“Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts”
We have control over our lives, where we end up, the person we are, and the legacy we will leave. People can discourage us, stand in our way, and try and tear us down, but they are irrelevant. They don’t exist. The only one’s who can have an effect on our failure, is us. WE determine who we are.
Don’t let the long haul discourage your journey to greatness. Don’t let hard work dissuade you. Don’t allow your inability to dream big to determine what you accomplish. Let not fear account for your position in life, let courage.
Life is what we will have it become. Not what we will allow it to have be forced upon us.
For Those Wanting to Build Their Ideal Body…
Don’t let the fear of hard work stand in the way of the body you should be walking around with at this very moment. Rise up and take ‘the challenge‘.
Are you afraid that “it” won’t work? Or are you afraid that “you” won’t work? This is the system that helped me gain 32 pounds in 32 weeks. Today, it’s helping hundreds of men and women build their dream bodies, because they invested in themselves, and are willing to work. To guarantee your transformation, you will have to work. Your fear shouldn’t be whether it works or if it doesn’t. You fear should – and does – lie in whether or not you will work hard, persevere, and stay disciplined.
What should you do? Well, find out. See what you’re made of. Click Here and take the challenge.
