WHAT YOU WANT IN LIFE IS DEPENDENT ON WHO YOU ARE
THE 12 VIRTUES THAT MAKE GREAT MEN AND HOW YOU CAN DEVELOP THEM TO BE MORE, DO MORE, EARN MORE, & WIN MORE.
A man’s gotta have a code, a creed to live by.
~ John Wayne
What separates the mediocre from the great is consistently shown not to be innate talent.
The good slide into a life of limited beliefs where their desires aren’t their own, yet they still lead them to live a life that’s far too short of their potential, far to safe for their idea of audacity.
The great see an alternate reality, one we all have access to. They set more audacious sights, lay far more ambitious plans, and create what they want from this one, fleeting life that we all have.
Sure they have urgency and work ethic, but underneath all of this is a virtuous foundation that enables them to choose and chase what they’re put here to pursue.
DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU REALLY WANT FROM LIFE?
What follows isn’t motivational. It’s not meant to inspire with fluffy quotes and tasks that are beneath you, that don’t truly challenge you.
What you’re about to read deals with fact:
YOU’RE FALLING SHORT OF BOTH YOUR POTENTIAL PERFORMANCE, AND YOUR POTENTIAL HAPPINESS, AND YOUR POTENTIAL DEGREE OF SUCCESS.
What you want in life is dependent on who you are…
…Not where you’re born nor who you’re born to.
So, who are you?
Few know how to answer the question.
Fewer, even, know what guides them to live how they live, act how they act, and what leads them to make the choices they make in life that ultimately determines what life they end up living.
Why?
Because almost non of us are embedded with the 12 virtues should be guiding us to greatness, goodness, and the grittiness that will help us live the life we want to live and should be living.
YOU ARE YOUR VIRTUES, YOUR CODE
They help you lead.
They help you win.
They help you sift through what others want you to do and be, what society expects of you and from you, and live YOUR LIFE ON YOUR TERMS.
Think about it…
Without a code and a set of virtues how do you know where you stand in times of strife and struggle, but also in times of flourishing and plenty?
Without a code how do you know which is the right decision and which is wrong one, which is good and which is bad?
How do you know what you really want in a life where we’re pulled and pushed in so many directions, most of which are out of line with the men we truly want to become, and what we most ambitiously want to accomplish?
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Unless you go to a religious school, virtues and values are nearly outlawed from our education system. If you’re lucky enough to play a sport growing up, but dually fortunate to have a coach that also serves as a mentor, you may get life lessons along the way.
If you have an old man that’s interested and equipped to teach you a code to live by, you’re again, in the minority.
But even if you have all of these things going for you, a clear code, a set of guiding principles and virtues is unlikely to cross your path.
WHAT YOU WANT IN LIFE IS DEPENDENT ON WHO YOU ARE, AND WHO YOU ARE LEANS HEAVILY ON THE VIRTUES YOU LIVE BY
It’s something I’ve looked for extensively. The best I’ve found is bits and pieces taken from books and authors and philosophers from Epictetus to Theodore Roosevelt, Robert E. Lee to Martin Luther King Jr.
Great men, for all their accomplishments and strengths, often lack one of many of the virtues we’ll go through in the following paragraphs.
We tend to deify great men. The reality is that they’re men, thus, they’re flawed.
This is incredibly important because if you read a finely detailed biography on a great man you’ll see this humanity, you’ll witness the decisions they made that led them down a greater path.
You’ll see that they’re far from a deity, far from a born hero. They’re men like you who struggle with the same things you struggle with.
They simply made the right decisions, and they made them from a place of strength and clarity, a place we can all create when we rise to the challenge and have the knowledge and the courage to choose the right path, the audacious path that gnaws at our souls whether we’re aware of it or not.
The greatest part of being a man is choice. We can choose who we want to become and how we want to react. From Machiavelli and Marcus Aurelius to James Cook and Magellan, we have a lineage of great and greatly flawed men who have personified some aspect of this code we can follow.
By taking the best of each of these men, by taking the best of the virtues we have to guide us, we can create a path, a guide to life that will serve us well if we’re strong enough, heck, man enough to stand by the code and live it through the ebbs and flows, the highs and lows of life.
I know you, to some extent.
You’re here for the same reasons I’m writing this:
YOU WANT MORE FROM LIFE AND YOU HOLD YOURSELF TO A STANDARD YOU’RE NOT QUITE MEETING
Only a few years ago I was living a life led by desires, not virtues.
It saw me squander what I’d earned, give up on what I pursued, set my sights lower than what my true ambitions called me to chase.
And then I read that quote by John Wayne and I knew that ‘the code’ was something I lacked. I didn’t have set-in-stone virtues that guided me through life’s tumultuous waters. I didn’t have something I could go to to set my sails in the right direction.
I mean, I had it in theory, I had the knowledge, but it wasn’t taught to me in a way that branded it into my psyche so as to be looked upon when life threw a curveball.
I needed this foundation, so I set out to create it.
Fortunately, there are things called books that we can look upon for wisdom. We have biographies that allow us to interpret lessons. We have Bibles and books of wisdom from the Stoics to the Ancient Greeks. Everything we need is out there; all I needed was to bottle it.
HOW MEN LEARN: WE NEED TO BE PUSHED AND CHALLENGED, NOT PREACHED TO OR TALKED AT.
The real world taught me far more than school ever could have.
Starting a business was my best teacher. Tribulation and success both showed me how to deal with uncertainty and failure, and the ease that can come after a few year’s work is finally complete and the rewards come through the door.
That’s how men learn.
We learn by being challenged, thrust out of our comfort zone and forced to make decisions that we could otherwise avoid in our daily lives.
That, however, isn’t how most ‘courses’ or programs work. It’s not how articles work or how books work. So while I was researching this code, these virtues to live by whether I was reading Meditations or Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot or the Discourses, I knew that to fully appreciate the virtue and imprint it into my Self, I need to accompany it with a challenge.
THE 12 VIRTUES
MIND
The goal of the 12 Virtues of Manliness isn’t to come out of it with knowledge or theory, but having lived each virtue, having won each challenge, and becoming a better, stronger, more confident man for it.
What’s great is that it doesn’t matter where you’re starting, whether you’re a Green Beret or a fella just starting to figure out that there’s a fire in his belly, one that needs to be fuelled.
Praise from Leroy, Former Green Beret, United States Armed Forces.
To say the least, I was a little wary of the program. You see, in November I transitioned from being a Special Forces Operator to my civilian life. Early on in my career I was not an Alpha male, I was THE Alpha male. Through all of the deployments, injuries and the loss of my brothers and family, I had lost myself.
Now I am not talking about being suicidal or waking up in night sweats. I had lost my perseverance, my drive, and my confidence. Which is extremely hard for some to believe. When I tell people my story, they look at me with an expression that says, "How can a decorated Green Beret stumble? If he stumbles, how can I ever make it?"
The truth is we all need to conduct maintenance on our manhood and our livelihood. Without constant improvement and testing, we will never thrive. We will never lead the pack.
Three months ago, I took a leap of faith. I literally threw away everything I knew about diet and exercise and began following your program religiously. It has worked wonders, my friend. I still am not my old self, but I am making one hell of a comeback.
So from a little shipping container in the middle of Afghanistan, I send you my thanks. You have changed my life and I am positive you will touch many others.
Nous Defions,
LeRoy
The 12 Virtues aren’t theory without action.
Each month we go over a single virtue, one that’s exercised by a single challenge within that month.
A man without a challenge cannot rise to become who he can potentially become.
I can read all of the books in the world but if I’m not challenged, if I’m not put to the test, I won’t live what I’ve learned.
However, virtues alone cannot help you become the man you can become. So, before we train our spirit, we must train our minds and our bodies through purposeful pain.
The goal, however, isn’t merely to live a virtuous life, but a flourishing life.
Virtues must be your foundation, but a strong body, mind, and business must exist for you to thrive.
WHAT WE WANT IN LIFE DEPENDS ON WHO WE ARE, FIRST.
ONLY THEN CAN WE WORK ON THE TACTICS AND HABITS THAT WILL HELP US EARN MORE, LEARN MORE, AND LIVE MORE.
SPEND THE NEXT 12 MONTHS MAKING MASSIVE IMPROVEMENTS IN YOU, WHO YOU ARE, THE REST OF WHAT YOU'RE ASPIRING FOR WILL FOLLOW SUIT.
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A TOTAL TRANSFORMATION FROM WHO YOU ARE TO THE MAN YOU WANT TO BECOME
I hate cheesy shit that doesn’t work.
I can’t stand the self-help industry because it doesn’t deal with realities, it doesn’t identify real road blocks and give applicable solutions.
IT DOESN’T CALL YOU OUT!
You are responsible for what you want in life and I’m tired of courses and books and programs falling just short of giving guys the road maps, virtues, and challenges we need not only to live and exist and survive, but to THRIVE.
You’re a warrior. You’re a man. You’re here to protect and provide.
I know I wasn’t taught the specific things we cover in the 12 virtues, and knowing that I know we all need this kind of stuff.
