This flies in the face of all we’ve been taught about how to be a better man, an alpha, a warrior, this selfless individual who does for others before he does for himself. We’re taught that a leader takes care of those around him before he worries about his own needs. We’re taught that goodness comes from service, and not the service of our own desires but in service of the wants and needs of his peers and the less fortunate.

This, however, is a fallacy.

If you want to make real change in this world, if you want to become a legend, a real leader, a real man, and an alpha male, you have to be more self-centered.

I think it was 5 years ago, but my dates are a little foggy. I was down with a group of pals at a mastermind in Key West, Florida. This was my first real introduction into this whole online world of creating a site and trying to fulfill a void in the market, creating something that people will need and that will benefit them, helping them improve themselves in some way shape or form.

Like the Man Diet that I created 4 years later where I saw a lack of nutritional advice and guidance for myself and my less than optimal testosterone levels, so I started researching. I discovered a complete lack of good dieting advice for men that addresses the needs for men and our most important hormone: testosterone.

For more on the Man Diet click here <===

Back to Key West…

It was my introduction to the entrepreneur lifestyle as well. I’d just started a site and had no clue the focus of where I wanted to take my business, nor which aspects of the business would enthuse me the most. This was the first time I was surrounded by guys doing big things, helping a ton of people, all under this lifestyle of the entrepreneur, free of bosses and people to answer to. It was also eye-opening. The hours these guys worked was incredible.

We’d get up in the wee hours and work all day, everyday, until night time. It was cool. These guys, myself soon to be included, were on a clear mission and though it wasn’t all about them, it was. And this is where I learned to be more self-centered.

I was sitting next to a pal of mine, a guy with a great business that he runs from anywhere in the world all while sitting or standing behind a computer. I said, You know, it’s cool that we can do what we love and still help people. He looked at me and provided a very unique perspective: Become great at what you do, then give back.

The key word was then. He, of course, wasn’t taking into account that his company actually helps people rehabilitate from injury and that in and of itself is helping thousands everyday. Regardless, I had to take a step back for a second.

Here I was, having been taught to help first, that the man who gives everything away is good and pure, it’s a lie. It’s a lie because the man who constantly gives everything away will give less than the man who hustles, forges his own identity, becomes great, then gives back. It’s not about daily giving, greatness in generosity is about the scope, the degree of which you create change and better the lives of others.

Become Great.

Self improvement and development and becoming great is selfish, it has to be. The thing is, in becoming great everyone around you benefits. You need to be more selfish to be more selfless. And a man needs to take care of business before his family because if his business fails he can’t take care of his family.

In being selfish, you’re being better, you’re becoming a better man, a better father, a better care-taker of those you care for.

Focusing on the Self.

[Tweet “Focus on your own shit, don’t worry about what others are doing.”]

This is the essence of what I’m talking about. When you’re in the gym, be in the gym, lifting, training, working your ass off to become better. Don’t worry about the douche next to you, eyebrows plucked to perfection, fake tan, flexing in the mirror for others under the guise of self-improvement. Don’t pay attention to the ten, the babe with the Lulu’s doing lunges in the corner no matter how beautiful she may be, you’re here for a reason and distraction is sin.

Read books that make you better, read articles that make you think, open your mind, inspire you, motivate you, help you focus on becoming better.

Your family is better off if you’re at your best, if you somehow actually reach this unattainable goal that is your true potential. This should be your goal, your potential. Not an average man doing average things, but a man who dares mightily, and even may fail on an equally grand scale.

Improve. Get better. Focus on what you’re doing and everyone around you, including this society, will reap the rewards.

Give While You Get Great.

This idea of becoming more self-centered can be difficult to articulate without going too far in one direction for a number of reasons. For one, all of the guys I know who are extremely successful, be they in their businesses or in life, are generous beyond belief. So the notion that self-centerdness has to come at the cost of generosity is false. They go hand in hand and you’re not being generous for your own gain you’re being generous because being generous makes you better and it makes you feel better.

Being good makes you better. Being kind makes you better. Being disciplined and focused makes you a much better man.

A man’s focus shouldn’t merely be on building a business, but building himself. The business is a thing, his spirit, soul, his impact on the lives of others is what will live on.

Reach Your True Potential By…

Setting higher goals, don’t aim for the mediocre that you know you can accomplish.

Years after I took that trip to Key West I incorporated my company, and no my business is not named Chad Howse Fitness. That’s the site. There’s a lot more to this thing than this lovely site that I love to write on. I incorporated my company under the moniker of Dare Mighty Things Inc.

As I see it the only way to live life is in this pursuit of greatness. Living life, experiencing this wonderful existence requires of us that we aim to reach our potential and in aiming to reach our true potential, we have to dare pretty fucking mightily. Mediocrity has no place in the goals we set nor the dreams we chase as our potential is far beyond, far greater than what our mind can conjure.

I called my company Dare Mighty Things Inc. because I want it to become something even greater than what I set out to create. I want it to impact the lives of millions, forming a tribe of strong, gritty, good men than will change time’s course versus the direction of history had it not been created. To accomplish this I realize that you may have an even greater hand in this than I. I may write and create but you’re going to read and spread the word. If what I make and write and create is good, and it hits a nerve, you’re going to share it. The thing isn’t what creates the growth, you are.

Be starkly aware of what hurts you, confines you.

This takes a lot of self-reflection and awareness to understand what in your life keeps you small, it takes even more discipline to be able to remove them from your life. The TV, the vices, the energy sucking humans that aim with all their might to keep you living the small, monotonous life that they’ve decided is their permanent reality until death swoops down and takes them away.

To reach your true potential you must focus on those things that make you great and the things that make you great aren’t necessarily the things that feel good.

Ease feels good, but it keeps you small.

Pain hurts, but it helps you grow.

Fear is scary but you have to wade into the waters of the unknown if you’re going to do more, be more, grow greater.

It takes courage to move away from the life that you could very easily live. Real courage. Not just the courage it takes to fight honorable battles, but courage to do what no one you know has done, but if there’s an itch there, a flickering flame fiending for the fuel that will allow it to grow and breathe, you must feed it for you know that the only way you’re going to truly be happy and satisfied is if you enter this dark arena of the unknown. You know that to reach your potential is the meaning of life and to live a life with meaning is to walk this earth outside of the limited perspectives that rule the masses and confine them to a state of boredom, a life not unlike a heroin addict constantly searching for that next fix, that next jolt that makes them feel alive but never being alive or living a life that at the end of their days as their breath dissipates they willingly take their last with pride.

Move away from that which keeps you small even if its held under the illusion of happiness. Move into the life of pain, the life of growth, the life of endless work and improvement of the self and realize the potential that has eluded every human that has ever walked this planet save a few souls who dared to challenge the realities of their peers, who dared to create their own existence and live life daily feeding that once flickering flame that has eventually grown into an unquenchable blaze, a legend that will never be forgotten as long as men walk this earth.