Jay Coughlan has been a CEO, a national keynote speaker, and a mentor to aspiring business leaders. He is also a convicted felon, and has spent time in prison. During this dark part of his life, he began developing a framework for dealing with the troubles that life inevitably brings.

Jay uses lessons gleaned from his own missteps to help change the paths of individuals and organizations. He has captured the energy from his true passion and combined it with his experience as a chief executive, creating TruBalanced™: Building Better Business Leaders.

“Don’t pray for easier lives, pray to be stronger men.” ~John F. Kennedy

1. Clarity is the Key to All Success

All success, whether it is in business, relationships, or health comes from clarity.

Imagine that we could rewind to the beginning of the new year and examine two different men.

One of them sets his new year’s resolutions with a simple statement “Get healthy”.

The other, clearly writes out his goals for his health, stating “I will go to the gym at least twice a week, working through a comprehensive weight lifting program with the goal of losing 10 lbs. of fat and adding 50 lbs. to all of my major lifts”

Which one do you think will be successful?

You see, without a clear roadmap for who we are and what we want to achieve, we will never find true success.

You must know exactly what you want, when you want it, and why you want it.

Without this clarity, you will find yourself wandering aimlessly for years, or even decades of your life and looking back, wishing that you’d had more direction.  

2. Real Change is Predicated on Accountability

Anytime we set out to make real changes in our lives, whether it is overcoming an addiction, repairing a marriage, starting a business, or achieving our dream body, we need accountability.

Whenever you “go it alone” you are the only person who you can disappoint.

If you miss a workout, spend too much money on going out, or relapse into old habits of drugs, alcohol, and porn, then you are the only person there to catch you when you fall.

However, when you build a structure of accountability into your life and have other men who are willing to show up around you and hold you to a higher standard and help you up when you fall.

When you have men who you are accountable to, you have a support system that will not allow you to fail, a support system that will call you on your crap, and encourage you whenever you are doing it right.

No man is an island and the only true way to succeed is with a team of like-minded individuals around you.

3. Failure is Not an Option… It’s a Given 

So often, you hear the phrase “Success is my only option, failure is not.”

As nice as that sentiment is, it is also wildly inaccurate.

Not only is failure an option, it is a given!

There is no way that you will succeed without failing on some level, it is simply a part of life.

But what defines a man and the legacy that he creates is not his failures, what defines a man is the way that he responds to failures.

Are you going to lie down and allow life to kick the motivation, joy, and passion out of you?

Or are you going to get up, look failure in the eyes, smile, and be grateful for the lessons that failure has taught you?

4. Life is a Marathon

All too often, men, and especially young men, feel the need to go, go go, pushing 60, 80, or even 100 hour weeks.

They work themselves bare to the bone, keeping their nose to the grindstone trying to “sprint” their way to success.

But you need to remember, life is a marathon.

You cannot just “sprint” your way to a balanced and fulfilling life.

A life of joy and happiness comes from years of doing the small things with excellence over and over and over again.

Working yourself into oblivion is your gateway to an early grave.

Pacing yourself and prioritizing the people and relationships in your life, on the other hand, is your gateway to success and fulfillment.

5. Remember 168

One of the only things in life that is truly fair is time.

Every single person has the same 168 hours in a week.

Bill Gates, Oprah, Elon Musk, all of these people have the same 168 hours in a week as you and me, the only difference is what they are doing with them.

Remember that each week you are given a gift, you are given 168 hours of precious time that you will never get back.

What are you going to do with those hours?

Are you going to invest them wisely ot build a legacy and create a life of love and joy?

Or are you going to squander them on television, video games, porn, and other traps?

The choice is yours.

Jeremy Cage’s life mission is to help unleash the full potential of as many businesses and as many people as he possibly can. His business experience spans three decades of delivering strong, profitable business growth for Procter & Gamble, Schering-Plough Healthcare, PepsiCo, The Lighting Science Group, and his own firm, The Cage Group.

He is a truly global citizen, having lived and worked in Germany, France, Belgium, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, and the United States. He is also the author of All Dreams on Deck.

“Most of us will die full of potential because we dream vaguely and dread specifically”

1. Dream Specifically and Dread Vaguely 

In our day to day lives, we get caught up in a trap of dreaming vaguely and dreading specifically.

We know that we want to travel the world, quit our jobs, start a company, and find the love of our lives.

But…

If we travel the world, we run the risk of getting kidnapped by a nefarious terrorist group that will hold us in a cave inside of the mountains and keep us until someone pays our ransom of $5,000,000 or we die from malnutrition.

If we quit our jobs, we will lose exactly $7,500 a month in income, run the risk of never financially recovering, burn every bridge in the world, and …

The list goes on and on and on.

The reality is that we should be dreaming specifically and dreading vaguely.

The worst that can happen is rarely that bad, and if you get specific, you have an unlimited potential to achieve all of your dreams.

2. Climb the Ladder of Intention

Most of us have dreams, but we are not intentional about them.

We have these ideas in our head about things that would be “nice” to do.

We think that it would be “nice” to achieve the body of our dreams, have a passionate and loving marriage, earn 6 or 7-figures, backpack across Europe, go skydiving in New Zealand, or finally start up that line of awesome gym wear.

But we don’t act.

We don’t set the intention.

If you want to achieve your dreams, then you must start by climbing up the ladder of intentionality.

The first rung of the ladder, where most of us reside, is the rung of thought.

We think about what we would like, but we leave it at that. We relegate our dreams to the plain of our imagination and never move on from there.

Moving up the ladder, we then come to the rung of writing. This is where we take the first step in moving our dreams forward by writing them down with clear parameters and a specific deadline.

This can be as simple as writing down our goals in a journal or creating a comprehensive plan with step by step actions that we are going to take.

Then, once we have leveled up our intentions and written our dreams down, the third step is to actually state our dreams to the world.

Whether you tell your wife about your new intention of showing up as the best husband ever (and tangible steps you are going to take to achieve that goal) or make a statement on social media about when and why you will quit your job, this step makes your dreams more visceral.

You now have other people holding you accountable and expecting greatness from you.

It’s harder to back down on your dreams when your whole social circle is there holding you accountable for the intention that you set.

The final level of intention is to actually take action.

To leave the “what if’s” and “I cant’s” behind and to actually start making moves towards achieving what you want.

If you are serious about living your dream life, then you need to start by climbing the ladder of intention.

Imagine your goals in your mind, write them on paper, tell loved ones about your plans, and then take massive action to achieve it!

3. Create Dreams for Each of Your Grab Bags

Each of us has our own personal “grab bags” or areas of life that we hold dear.

For some of us its adventure for others its stability.

For some of us its intimacy and for others its excitement.

No matter what your personal grab bags are, you need to create and clearly articulate your dreams for each.

Is health a grab bag for you?

Then define your dream. Write out and climb the ladder of intention with your health, declare what you want your body to look and feel like and then go out and take the action necessary to make it happen.

Is your relationship with your wife a grab bag?

Then define your dreams for your relationship. How many times do you go out for dates? How do you treat her and speak to her? How do you show up as the passionate and loving man you have the potential to be?

If you want to die empty and truly live a 10/10 life, then you need to determine what is important to you and define your dreams for each area of your life.

Anna Akbari, PhD, is a sociologist, writer, and entrepreneur. She holds a PhD in sociology and has taught at NYU and Parsons. She is the founder of Sociology of Style, an image and life coaching company, and a partner in HVCK, a Silicon Valley innovation consultancy.

She is a frequent public speaker and media personality, and has written for and been featured by Forbes, CNN, The Atlantic, The Economist, TIME, The Financial Times, TED, Bulletproof Executive, New York Observer, DailyWorth, The Huffington Post, and dozens more.

“Happiness is not a goal, it is a byproduct” ~Eleanor Roosevelt

1. True Happiness is Never the Goal

All too often in our modern Western culture, people chase happiness.

Happiness is something that they try to attain, it is a goal that they pursue, and in the end, it is this pursuit of happiness that ultimately leads to its demise.

True happiness doesn’t come from simply meditating, chanting a mantra, or looking at yourself in the mirror and saying “I am happy, I am happy, I am happy”.

True happiness is a multifaceted feeling that is derived from creating a multifaceted and fulfilling life.

I want you to imagine two men on their personal growth journey.

Man #1 spends his mornings meditating, screaming incantations about happiness, and journaling about how he wants to feel happy.

He is constantly chasing happiness, but finds that every time he experiences unhappiness, he spirals into a downward plunge thinking to himself “Why am I not happy? What am I doing wrong? Life sucks!”

Man #2 on the other hand, is not concerned with feeling happiness, but rather with creating an optimal life where happiness is the byproduct.

He meditates in the morning, says his affirmations in the mirror, and writes in his journal, sure.

But he is focused on something bigger.

He is building a business, growing a family, taking care of his body, and putting himself into flow every day.

And as a result of these actions, he experiences true and recurring happiness.

Stop chasing happiness and let it come to you.

2. Develop Your Personal Rulebook 

There is an old saying that “Life doesn’t come with an owners manual”.

Life is unpredictable and we are often left confused and clueless about what we should do.

However, the only way that we can truly experience any level of consistency in this crazy thing called life is to hold ourselves (the only thing that we are truly in control of) accountable to our own set or rules and values.

In other words, to create our own personal rule book for what we will allow in our lives and what we won’t, how we will act and how we will not, what we will and will not tolerate, and most importantly, who we will show up as every single day of the week.

Life may not come with an owners manual, but whenver you create rules for your life, you don’t need one.

You don’t have to look outside of yourself for the answer to problems that you face.

Instead, you approach each and every hour, minute, and second of your life through a set of lenses that you have created and determined.

If you have created a rule for yourself that you will prioritize family over finances, then you don’t have to worry about whether you should take the higher paying job or continue working at a lower pay grade so that you can continue spending time with your children.

If you have a personal rule that you do not drink, smoke, or snort cocaine, then you aren’t going to have to wonder whether you should try it “just this once” when you are out with your friends, because you have a set of rules that you abide by.

The thing is, outside of the basic moral fibers that constitute and uphold our society, there are no “wrong” rules.

For some of you, finances might be the biggest priority in your life, for others it might be your health or your spirituality.

Some of you are totally ok having an occasional cigarette and drinking a glass of wine each night and some of you have highly addictive personalities and can’t touch the stuff.

Know yourself, know your worth, and create your rules accordingly.

3. Prioritize Your Social Life to Optimize the Rest of Your Life 

Many men put off creating and maintaining a healthy social life in favor of relentlessly pursuing their financial and career goals.

This is a mistake.

What most men do not realize is that a healthy social life is actually one of the biggest keys to having a healthy life, period.

Social connection, love, and friendship are so important that if you are not cultivating strong relationships in your life, you are doing the same damage to your body as if you were smoking a pack of cigarettes a day!

It is hardwired into our genes and our psyche to seek out companionship and relationships and to build communities of our own.

And in our “hyper-connected” world, we seem to forget the importance of real human interaction.

If you want to instantly boost your happiness, health, and success, then seek out new friendships with positive people, and cultivate those relationships on a daily basis.

Whether you simply have coffee with a friend before work, go to the gym every day with your significant other, or host weekly dinner parties, it is important that you get off of your devices and into real interaction.

4.It is NEVER too Early or Late to Pivot Your Life

Whenever you ask someone why they are unwilling to make a drastic change in their life, they will often tell you that they feel they are too young or too old.

Let me tell you right now, you are never too young or too old to pivot and achieve the life that you want.

It doesn’t matter whether you are 15 or 95, you can make the conscious decision today to make a pivot, to make a change, and to start living a life on your terms.

5. Remember that Life is Created in Our Moments of Play and Introspection

Two of the key components of true happiness that are often entirely ignored by the modern man are play and introspection.

Life is a journey, and it’s supposed to be a fun one.

You weren’t put on this planet to constantly be serious and miserable, you were put here to make an impact and have fun while you do it.

If you want to be happier, then stop taking yourself so damn seriously!

Relax, enjoy the simpler things in life, and just play around. Be goofy, be spontaneous, be funny, be ridiculous, just play.

The funny thing that you will find is that your moments of play often bring about the greatest ideas and epiphanies to shape the rest of your life.

However, as you work hard and play harder, never forget to take time to pause and reflect.

Take time away from the noise for introspection. Think, reflect, and ponder your own existence, your own purpose, and your own character.

Your moments of introspection will equip you with the power and the self-knowledge that you need to truly show up in every area of your life.

Born in Egypt, Dr. Nour left Cairo in 1977 after graduating in the top of his class at the Medical School of Cairo University. Looking for the freedom to study medical subjects of interest to him in the U.S., he made his way to London but got caught in three year immigration process.

After many years of private Neurology practice in the Midwest and due only to an allergy to Canadian Geese, which flourish in large populations there, Dr. Nour moved to Southern California. Happily married with two daughters in college, he is now semi-retired. He is an accomplished painting artist, videographer, photographer and a graphic designer.

He enjoys opera, sailing, tennis, bicycling, and learning about other cultures through travel, all while still enjoying helping patients with complex neurological disorders.

“With persistence, you can achieve anything your heart desires.”

1. “Love” is a Scientific Series of Processes that Occur in Four Distinct Phases

1. Mate Choice

The first phase of love is mate choice. At it’s most basic level, this is the process of meeting someone and (subconsciously) deciding that they are a good match for you and your potential offspring on a genetic level. This phase happens almost instantly.

2. Falling in Love

The process that Hollywood and pop culture have used and abused. This is the phase in a relationship where the two individuals will feel massive attraction for one another and experience a heightened increase in certain pleasure chemicals. This phase will typically last 1-3 years.

3. Falling Out of Love 

A necessary part of finding true love, the third phase of love is where you effectively experience the proverbial “come down” from the neurochemical high that you experienced during phase two. During this phase of the process, you will begin struggling in your relationship and find your partner less appealing than you did before.  This phase will typically last around a year.

4. True Love

This is where the rubber meets the road. During the final stage of love, “True Love”, you have experienced falling out of love, made a conscious and informed decision that your current partner is right for you, and you now experience a release of a new set of pleasure chemicals that are slower forming but longer lasting, leading to the much desired “Happily ever after”.

2. Falling Out of Love is Essential to True Love

Many people assume that if they are falling out of love with their partner it is a bad thing.

However, they should actually get excited.

Falling out of love is an essential, if not the most essential part of the four phases of true love.

You see, the first two phases of love cause people to experience such an overwhelm of pleasure chemicals being released in the brain that they quite literally cannot see the other person for what they really are.

Thus the phrase “Love is blind”.

However, because your genes are hardwired to help ensure that you are able to survive and procreate with the highest levels of success possible, phase two begins.

During this phase, your genes are working behind the scenes to help you determine whether the person you are with is truly the best match for you in the long run.

If you do not have this phase, you cannot have true love.

Read that again and write it down.

Unless you fall out of love with your partner, you will scientifically never be able to experience true and lasting love. 

This is not an easy reality to stomach, but the knowledge and foresight of what is to come will allow you to make informed decisions about your relationships and truly determine what is best for you in the future.

3. If You Do Not Fall Out of Love with Somebody You Cannot Fall in Love With Someone New

Many men beat themselves up and feel battered down because they are unable to move on after a bad breakup or divorce.

Gentlemen, I have good news for you.

It is not your fault.

Despite what we have been lead to believe by the pop culture surrounding masculinity, on a chemical and neurological level, you cannot just get over it whenever you experience a traumatizing separation.

You see, whenever you are caught in the second phase of love and your partner ends the relationship (often because they reached the third phase and did not know how to handle it), you are still caught in love on a chemical level.

Your brain will literally not allow you to move on until you have experienced the biological and neurological effects of falling out of love.

So what does this mean for you?

If your wife or girlfriend ends things while you are mid-phase 2 are you doomed to an eternity of lovelessness?

No.

Even though your brain and genes are working “against” you, it is possible to recover.

Typically this will occur whenever you maintain an amiable (or nonamiable) relationship with your previous partner and allow yourself to naturally fall out of love with them.

If they have been removed from your life completely, you will often need to seek professional help to truly recover and move on to your next love in a healthy way.

4. Love and Sex Are Not the Same Thing

A common fallacy among the uninformed is that love and sex are the same things.

They are not.

While love and sex are complimentary in their nature, they serve two completely different purposes.

Think about it this way.

Sex is all about satiation.

It’s about achieving the goal of orgasm and there is a set amount of sex that any given person can handle before they are done.

Love, on the other hand, does not have an inherent goal or “climax”. It is an ongoing process that can and should feel like a bottomless well.

Have you ever heard anyone say “No thanks, I don’t want any more love today. You can take your love and go give it to someone else.”?

However, love makes sex more intense and emotional and sex makes loves more binding.

Like a doctor and a nurse, they work together, but serve very separate roles.

5. Your Capacity for Love Depends on Your Genes

And now, the big one.

This particular point will be uncomfortable for many of you and might even make some of you angry.

But like the famous scientist Neil DeGrasse Tyson said, “The great thing about science is that it is true whether you agree with it or not”.

Your capacity for true love, connection, and monogamy are all highly dependent on your genes.

There are some people who due to their genetic variations quite literally cannot experience true love.

The chemicals are there, but the genetic wiring to receive the “true love” chemicals are not.

This is a hard pill for many to swallow.

The fact that monogamy, fidelity, and the quality of your relationships can actually have anything to do with your genes, let alone everything to do with them, is not something that most members of society understand and accept.

And while this truth may not be comfortable, it is the truth and it’s important that you remember this on your quest to find your own true love.

A former SpaceX employee turned social powerhouse, Michael Knight is the author of “Understanding the Fundamentals of Female Dynamics”, a world traveler, and a master of authentic social interaction.

Don’t ask for guarantees. And don’t look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore.” ~Ray Bradbury

1. Persistent Small Action will Get You the Results 

On your path to greatness, one thing and one thing alone will be responsible for your results.

The consistent and persistent action that you take over time in pursuit of your dreams.

It is like Bruce Lee said, “Long term consistency trumps short term intensity”.

If you decide that you want to revolutionize your health and your physique, then going to the gym for 6 days straight, working out three hours each time, and taking $100s of dollars of supplements in the first week will do very little to help you achieve your goals.

However, even going to the gym a mere 3 times a week over the course of six months, training for an hour, and taking only two supplements but taking the right supplements will result in the ultimate success you desire.

If you want to build a successful online business, then publishing 7 articles a week for a month and working 16 hour days for the first five days will actually prove counter-productive.

However, persisting through the challenges and consistently generating new content and products over 12-36 months will give you a platform that will provide success and financial freedom for years to come.

The same is true of your interactions with women.

If you want to get better with women, then you need to be persistent and take small action over time.

As you grow and build your skills, you will become more successful and your success will compound until eventually, you reach your desired level.

2. Reset Your Definition of Success

If you want to be truly successful with women, then reset your definition of success.

Most men think that they are only successful if they leave their venue with a hot girl wrapped around their arm begging him to call a taxi and take her back to his place.

But the truth is, achieving success on a social level simply requires that you take action.

Did you go over and talk to the pretty girl?

Did you say hello?

If so, then congratulations! You are successful.

As soon as you make this mental shift, all of your interactions will be viewed through a different set of lenses.

Instead of seeing rejection as a failure, you will see the fact that you even tried as a success.

And when you reset your definition of success, you will find yourself having more fun and enjoying your social time on a whole new level.

You will be able to let loose and enjoy a night with friends without being outcome dependent.

And ironically, this almost always increases your success with women.

3.Remember that You are a Gold Miner

Whenever you are put into a social situation and you are looking for companionship platonic or otherwise, you need to remember that you are not there to barter for attention.

You aren’t at the bar, club, networking event, or restaurant to woo others or to buy affection.

You are there to mine the crowd to find those one or two individuals who you genuinely connect with and who you feel comfortable spending time with.

Even if buying women drinks always lead to sex, would you really want those kinds of relationships?

Wouldn’t it be better if you were rejected by 99 women, but found that 1 girl who you could talk to for hours?

The girl who interested you, who captivated your attention, who respected you, and who genuinely enjoyed your presence… not just your cash?

That should be your end goal anytime you find yourself in a social interaction.

You and panning and filtering for gold, and not shedding a tear when your pan comes up muddy.

4. You Attract What You Are

If you have found yourself consistently attracting low-quality women, winding up in relationships with “crazies”, and getting sucked into petty drama and trivial bullshit with your significant other, then it’s time to take a look in the mirror.

Who you attract into your life is almost always a direct reflection of the kind of man you are and the kind of behavior that you are willing to tolerate.

If you find yourself with whiny, clingy women, it is because you are not showing up as a man.

You are not setting the standards from the word “go” and you are allowing these women to act in a certain manner around you.

If you want to attract a higher quality of woman, then become a higher quality man.

5. Women Crave Confidence and Congruence in Men

All women want two things from their men.

Confidence and congruence.

Women want you to show up in the world with a grin on your face, no matter how challenging the circumstances are around you. They want a man who knows that he can handle anything the world throws at him.

They want a man who is confident in himself and in who he is becoming.

They also want a man who is congruent. A man who is who he says he is. A man whose words and actions are in alignment.

If you can show up in the world as a man who is confident in who he is and what he believes and maintain a strong congruence in your thoughts, words, and deeds, then the sky is the limit.

And not just with women, but in all areas of your life.

Charles Chen is a TV Host, Traveling Chef, Wellness Expert, Creator of Dinner Club based in Los Angeles & New York City. At one point in his life, Charles struggled with his health and weighed up to 260 pounds. Charles was pre-diabetic, lethargic, and had no motivation. Since then Charles has lost over 100 pounds, reclaimed his health through adopting a whole foods lifestyle and now passionate about helping others live their best life!

Charles was pre-diabetic, lethargic, and had no motivation. Since then Charles has lost over 100 pounds, reclaimed his health through adopting a whole foods lifestyle and now passionate about helping others live their best life!

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure” ~Marriane Williamson

1. You Have the Power to Change Your Story in an Instant

How long does it take to change your life?

Does it take months, years, decades?

Or is it possible to change your life and your story in an instant and with one single decision?

I believe that all change happens in an instant.

You have the ability to elevate your life and transform your story in a single heartbeat whenever you decide that enough is enough, whenever you realize that you physically cannot continue living life the way that you have been living.

And this moment comes at different times for every person reading this.

Maybe your transformation was/will be precipitated by a divorce, a heart attack, a bankruptcy or another catastrophic event.

Or maybe it will be something much simpler and (for you) more profound.

Your story may change one morning when you look at yourself in the mirror and don’t like what you see. It might come whenever your wife or girlfriend asks if you really love them. Or maybe it will come when you wake up with a hangover for the sixth day in a row and realize that there has to be more to life.

But for some of you, you will never have these life-shattering events or enlightened moments of self-reproach.

For some of you, you must make the conscious decision that you are going to change your story.

No matter where you are in your life, you have the power to change everything in an instant.

If you have strong enough reasons and a powerful plan of action, you will succeed.

2. Discover Who You Really Are

Know thyself.

This is a tenant and axiom of life that is almost as old as life itself.

But how many of us actually take the time to apply it?

How many of us take the time out of our “busy” days that are filled to the brim with social media, meaningless sitcoms, and endless distractions to actually sit alone with ourselves in silence and ask the question “Who am I?”?

How many of delve deep into our own consciousness and psyche to discover who we really are and, more importantly, who we want to become?

Self-knowledge is the key to achieving success in every area of your life, and if you are not consciously taking time out of every day to sit in silence, meditate, and dive into your mind, then you are on a path that can only end in failure.

3. Take Full Responsibility for Yourself

Did you ever see the movie “Finding Nemo”?

Do you remember the part where Nemo gets stuck in the filter?

As he slaps his fins around helplessly all of the tank’s other occupants rush to help him, all except one.

The jaded old “Gill” comes over and orders every other fish in the tank to let Nemo find his own way out stating “You got yourself in there and you can get yourself out”.

Despite Nemo’s pleas and cries to the contrary, he eventually summons up the courage to pull himself out of the filter swim to safety.

Later in the movie, this simple action was all that it took to give Nemo the courage that he needed to escape captivity and be reunited with his father.

And while comparing your life to a movie about a missing fish might sound overly simplistic, the world’s greatest lessons are often shared in the simplest ways.

One of life’s simplest truths is this: If you want to be successful then you must take full responsibility for everything in your life and everything not in your life. 

Your results are yours and yours alone.

Your choices determined the body, bank account, and relationships that you have right now.

And as soon as you are willing to admit this, you are able to take the leap forward and elevate your life.

As soon as you take responsibility you realize that you also have the ability to change the way that things are.

4. Always be the ‘Dumbest’ Person in the Room

Success requires a borderline sadistic commitment to intentional “self-deprecation.”

And no I don’t mean that you should constantly be putting yourself down or joking about your poor sexual performance.

What I mean is that the quickest way to success is to push yourself “down” and surround yourself with people who bring you up.

It is all too easy to gain a little bit of success, let it go to your head, and then surround yourself with people who are impressed by your accolades and accomplishments.

It is much harder to have the humility to put yourself in a room where you are out of your element, where everyone around you is more successful and more grounded, and to listen to what those people have to say.

Surround yourself with people who challenge you to be better, not people who are enamored with who you already are.

5. Turn Pro

If you want to succeed, if you want to be the best, if you want to be a professional is your field…

You must start to see yourself as such.

Because the simple truth is that how you see yourself is how you will show up in the world.

If you see yourself as a professional and cultivate the habits and mindsets of a professional in your field, then those are the results that you will achieve.

If you see yourself as a “dabbler” or an amateur, then that is how you will play the game and you will constantly be held by back by your own limited perception.

Turn pro.

See yourself as an A+ player, cultivate the right habits and mindsets, and your ‘game’ will never be the same.

Stephen Mansfield is a New York Times bestselling author and a popular speaker who works with leaders worldwide.

He first rose to global attention with his groundbreaking book The Faith of George W. Bush, a bestseller that Time magazine credited with helping shape the 2004 U.S. presidential election. The book was also a source for Oliver Stone’s award-winning film “W.” Mansfield’s The Faith of Barack Obama was another international bestseller.

He has written celebrated biographies of Booker T. Washington, George Whitefield, Winston Churchill, Pope Benedict XVI, and Abraham Lincoln, among others. Publishers Weekly described his book, Killing Jesus, as “masterful.”

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation” ~Henry David Thoreau

1. Manly Men Need Other Manly Men 

No man is an island.

Even though you have heard the saying hundreds if not thousands of times, few men truly internalize what it means, and still fewer act on it.

Just look at the statistics.

A simple scroll across the front pages and you will find sky-high suicide rates among males, loneliness, depression, and anxiety in numbers that we have never seen before.

Why is this?

While there are many theories and hypothesis, a critical look at the situation makes things clear.

We are a species that was built to be in community, and even though we are more connected now than ever before, most of us are utterly and absolutely alone.

We have no one to call us up, no one to celebrate with us, no one to challenge us, to help us, to hold us accountable and keep us to our word.

And because of this deterioration in our social structure men have become soft, weak, and effeminate.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

As a man, you have the power to break this pattern.

Make a conscious effort to meet and befriend other men. And when you are in these friendships, dive deeper than you ever have before.

Hold nothing back and hold each other up.

You will be amazed at the results.

2. Manly Men Do Manly Things

If you want to call yourself a man, then you need to do manly things.

Period.

Does this mean that you should shave with a tomahawk, lift boulders for fun, and skin polar bears with your fingernails?

Probably not (although that would be quite cool), it simply means that you need to embrace the masculine nature of doing instead of spectating  and talking.

Get off of your butt and get into life!

Learn a new skill, fix things, build things, explore, create, conquer.

Especially if you are a younger man, get off of the darn Xbox and learn something practical.

Teach yourself how to maintain a car, learn how to build and fix things, become a better public speaker.

Just do. 

Quit talking and take action, starting yesterday.

3. Manly Men Tend Their Field 

Every man has his own field to tend.

No, I don’t mean this literally, although some of you might.

What I mean is that every man has his own set of duties and responsibilities and if you want to consider yourself a man, then you must tend to those responsibilities.

Whether you are 15 listening to this podcast or 50, we all have our own fields.

For some of you, it’s school work, your girlfriend, and your football buddies.

For others, it’s your 8-figure company, your wife of 30 years, and non-profit.

It doesn’t matter what your particular field is, what matters is that you are diligent in tending to and watering your field.

Be disciplined in your action.

Do what needs to be done.

Tend your field.

4. Manly Men Build Manly Men 

One of the less flaunted traits of manly men is that they build other manly men.

There is an old saying that the true mark of a leader is not how many followers he has but how many leaders he creates.

Regardless of your religion or personal beliefs about the historicity of Jesus Christ, his virtues as a leader are unquestionable.

However, where Jesus excelled was at building up other leaders, in his case, disciples.

In fact, he was such an effective leader that of the 12 men who followed him, all but one (or two counting Judas) were martyred for their belief in Christ.

Now, whether you believe the stories or not, there is a powerful lesson to be learned about leadership and about the importance of building up those who are around you.

Are you really a man if all you can do is take from others and be built up?

Or do you need to take a step back and see who you can serve instead?

5. Manly Men Sacrifice Their Pleasures for Their Purpose 

The true hallmark characteristic of all manly men is their ability to endure suffering.

Manly men know that all greatness was bred through suffering.

You must experience the pain and suffering of building and losing your dreams before you will be able to fully appreciate, live, and achieve in the ways that you desire.

With the exception of individuals with inherited wealth, no man of substance, no man of great success, and no man of wealth ever achieved their status and material pleasures without first sacrificing and delaying gratification.

If you want to be great, be ready to suffer.

If you want to be great, don’t ask yourself what you want, ask yourself what you are willing to bleed for.

Tommy Baker is a highly credited athlete, coach, and entrepreneur who lives to inspire and serve others by helping them achieve their fitness and personal goals.

He is also the founder of the Resist Average Academy Podcast where he interviews inspiring individuals and industry experts to help bring holistic and mainstream health advice to the modern man.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat” ~Theodore Roosevelt

1. Get in the Arena and Off Your Ass

In life, there are two kinds of men and only two.

There are the spectators and the men in the arena.

The spectator is the man who is complacent, who is comfortable, who sits back on the sidelines and watches others on their paths to greatness, all the while doing nothing himself.

He criticizes, complains, and makes damn sure that every single person within a 300 ft radius know his opinion on any given topic, but he never adds anything, he never gives any value.

He simply watches and takes.

And then you have the man who in the arena.

This is the man who has decided to leave the sidelines and take his life into his own hands.

This is the man who quits his secure job to pursue his dreams, who drops out of college to travel the world, who learns how to meet and date beautiful women, who goes through the pain of sculpting his body, and who truly challenges himself to live up to his potential in every area of life.

Which kind of man are you?

2. Commit to Your Craft. Never Dabble

While there are only two types of men in this world, for a brief period of time, many of those men will fall into a third category, if only for a brief moment.

This man is known as the dabbler.

This is the man who was sitting on the sidelines, and instead decides to stand up and put one foot into the arena.

But whenever the competition edges closer to him and he sees the faces of his adversaries and smells the blood on the sand, he backs down, afraid to commit to his new way of life.

This is the type of man who starts a business but never builds it, who begins a novel but never finishes it, who invests in coaching but never takes action, and who listens to all of the dating programs but never gets his ass to a venue to ask a woman out.

Don’t be that man.

If you want something, then commit.

Don’t waffle on the sidelines, unable to make a decision.

You either say this is it! This is my f*cking time to be who I want to be or you back down gracefully.

There is no in between.

3. Invest in Yourself First 

So many men who start down their paths to greatness hit a sinister trap called a plateau. They have been striving and striving for so long whether it is in their business or their relationships, but all of the sudden, they realize that they cannot progress anymore.

Many men think it must be something is wrong with the vehicle that they are in so they abandon the relationship, start a new company, or quit the training program they were using.

But what the true achievers realize whenever they are faced with these periods of stagnation is that all outward growth is a direct result of inward investment.

If your workout program isn’t working (and it is accredited and proven), odds are that you are really the one who is not working.

If your business is not growing, then chances are good that you not growing.

If your relationships are failing, then the likely culprit is staring right back at you in the mirror.

And the only way that you can overcome challenges and times like this is to invest in yourself.

To achieve your outward goals, you must become the strong, grounded, powerful man on the inside first.

Whether you need to start reading more books, listening to podcasts, investing in seminars, or hiring a coach, do whatever you believe is necessary to elevate your growth and start achieving on a level that you never thought possible.

4. Start Your Days with Positive Habits

Almost everyone in the fitness and self-help world follows or prescribes some form of morning routine.

And while many of these experts convolute the power of this habit by recommending an excessive number of practices or specific ways that you have to do things, the truth of the matter is much simpler.

Every morning when you wake up, your goal should be to focus your mind and your heart on all of the good in your life.

Think about how grateful you are for the people and the opportunities that you have in your life.

Write a thank you note to a colleague.

Tell your wife or girlfriend that you love her.

Because once you have done something that puts you into this state of being, the rest of the day will flow naturally.

When you are grateful for your health, you don’t take it for granted.

When you are grateful for a spouse you don’t start the morning by arguing.

When you are thankful for all of the opportunities in your life, you are unlikely to waste them and more likely to chase the day down with a fire and intensity that is rare is most modern men.

5. Be  Willing to Suffer for Your Goals 

Here is a simple truth that most ‘gurus’ will not tell you.

Success sucks.

Because there is no way to achieve success without some level of suffering.

No matter what you want, you are goig to have to go through some pain and some heart ache to achieve it.

Whether you want a chiseled body, a full bank account, a loving relationship, or a deep spiritual connection, you will have to go through some pain to get it.

And at the end of the day, you need to remember that behind every great deeds are thousands of hours of painful deeds that go unnoticed.

However, if you are willing to face the pain, the rewards on the other side are worth it.

Triambika is an internationally recognized seminar leader, professional sex and conscious intimacy coach and the founder of The Ecstatic Awareness Institute.

She has guided thousands of men and women to empower their sexuality, by helping them to release shame, gain confidence, learn to have extraordinary sex, experience exceptional stamina and create healthier relationships.

Her powerful work with singles and couples have been featured on the Playboy channel, Personal Life Media, Source Tantra, Gilad Creative Media and as the lead host and emcee for the International Sex and Consciousness Conferences.

Triambika brings her depth, intuition, passion and magnetism to her work. Harnessing her extensive training and practice with the time-honored tradition of Tantra, human sexuality, non-dual spirituality, masculine and feminine dynamics, NLP, and body-based modalities including yogic therapy and bodywork, she helps her clients to reach authentic sexual freedom and to form fulfilling relationships that support the highest expression of who they are.

“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful” ~Joshua J. Marine

1. Men Must Learn to Balance Their Energies

While the deterioration of established gender roles within our society has allowed for many phenomenal progressions to occur within our society, the simultaneous deterioration of the family has caused these changes to create a rift among men.

Without strong and enlightened male role models in their lives, most young men walk through life desperately searching for an identity and a definition of masculinity.

And unfortunately, many find that identity in the wrong place.

You see most modern men fall into one of two categories.

They are either the completely emasculated shell of a man who wears his heart on his sleeve, is unwilling to do the necessary work to succeed, and refuses to stand up for himself.

Or they are hyper masculine men whose entire sense of self is derived from their ability to achieve, to conquer women, and to be the most “alpha” guy in the room.

But what if there was a third option?

What if there was a man who was unashamedly masculine, who went after what he wanted, who lived life on the bleeding edge, who was unafraid to stand up for himself or others?

But…

He was also unafraid to dive into his feminine, to experience all the emotions that life has to offer, to cry and laugh and hurt and be vulnerable without fearing judgment.

That is the kind of man that we must all strive to be.

And the man that women long to be with.

2. Slow Down With Your Woman

As men, we all love sex.

But something that we do not realize that for a woman to fully experience and appreciate intercourse on a whole new level, we as men need to slow down.

And I am not just talking about lasting longer.

You see, sex is something that is incredibly psychological for women more so than it is physical.

For a woman, the way that you look at her throughout the day, the way that you send her texts telling her you are excited to see her, the way that you romance and seduce her, no matter how long you have known each other is the difference between good sex and mind blowing sex.

Learn to slow down, not just for the sake of your sexual relationships, but for the sake of everything else in your life as well.

We move too damn fast in our modern world, never taking time to be fully present and appreciate each moment.

Slow down and you will live life on a frequency that you never thought possible, and you will also open up your woman in ways that you never thought possible.

3. Breathe

I know that this might seem like a simplistic concept, yet no matter how simple the concept of breath might seem, its importance is literally life changing.

Just within the context of sex, a man who masters his breath will be able to control ejaculations, last as long as he wishes, and experience pleasure within the sexual realm that he never thought possible.

But the breath extends beyond sex into every part of life, because… well, the breath is life.

We live in a day and age where most people do not take the time to just breathe and appreciate the moment.

They live lives at the speed of sound, slouched over, and breathing in shallow spurts.

If you want to revolutionize your health, your mental clarity, and your sexual life learn to deepen your breath and begin taking time for yourself to simply breathe.

1. The Art of Conscious Loving by Charles Muir

2. The Art of Everyday Ecstasy by Margot Anand

http://ecstaticawareness.com/

Next Steps

We’re on a mission to impact a million men with powerful life changing content. If you enjoyed this article, please share it with your friends on your preferred social network on the left. I spent a ridiculous amount of time creating this article for you and with your support, we can impact the world together.

Want to become the strongest version of yourself?

Then click here to get a free trial to my elite community of 800+ high-performing men, The Secrets of the Top 1% of Men. Not only will you get tapped into your own “band of brothers”, but you’ll also have access to some of my best content and training as well as bi-weekly group calls with my team of coaches.

If you’re ready to push the boundaries of what’s possible in your life and become the man you’ve always wanted to be. This is the fastest way to do it.

Howard Falco is a peak performance coach, mindfulness expert and spiritual teacher. He is the author of two powerful books on human understanding and potential, I AM: The Power of Discovering Who You Really Are and Time in A Bottle: Mastering the Experience of Life.

His teachings specialize in the realization of the power we each have within to create exactly what we desire. Revealed is an awareness regarding how to break through any perceived personal limitation and how to overcome any challenge in order to achieve what is believed as possible.

“It’s not the mountain we conquer but ourselves” ~Sir Edmund Hillary

1. All of Success is About Conquering Yourself

Most people assume that success is all about the mechanics.

They think it is about taking the right action, saying the right things in sales calls, or making all of the right moves.

But in reality, success is a more personal endeavor.

Yes, it is important that you are doing the right things and taking the proper actions, but that is not your main prerogative.

Before you even start to think about what words to write on your blog, how to approach that lead, or how to improve your product, you need to remember that success starts on the inside.

Guess what, no matter what you are striving for, you will face failure at some point in your life, however, if you have developed yourself, if you have conquered your own emotions of fear, doubt, and unconfidence, you can return from any failure and be victorious.

2. Personal Identity is Crucial to All Peak Performance

I am sure that all of you are familiar with Tony Robbins, the (in)famous life and personal development coach who has become a legend in the industry.

Tony has an interesting tactic for helping people overcome their addiction to cigarettes.

Instead of telling them to stand in the mirror and recite “I am a non smoker” every morning or telling them to burn their packet of Marlboro’s, instead, he has them change their identity.

How so?

He has them take up an activity or hobby that is completely incongruent with their identity as a smoker like cross country skiing, marathon running, or yoga.

This works because the former smokers now see themselves differently. They see an athlete, a champion, a warrior, and not someone addicted to a disgusting habit.

What Tony helps them do is to create a new belief system and personal identity.

And while this principle applies to addiction, it also applies to peak performance.

If you have developed an identity and personal belief that you are a high performer, that you are someone who shows up and does what needs to be done, then you are going to perform on a high level.

However, if you consider yourself to be average, if your identity is that of a mediocre man, then your results will continue to be average.

You need to develop an unshakable identity as a high achiever and peak performer before you can expect to achieve highly or perform at your peak.

3.Ask Yourself Why Not Me?

Have you ever had a dream, a passion, a longing for something, but you thought to yourself, “That’s not for me, I will never achieve that.”

Have you ever looked at another man with envy thinking, “There is no way that I will ever be that good, not me.”?

If so, then you need to wake up and realize that the question you need to start asking yourself is “Why Not ME?”

If you have a goal, if you have a dream, if you have a vision, then wake up and fight for it.

Why not you?

Why shouldn’t you achieve all of your wildest hopes and dreams?

Why shouldn’t you become the best man that you can possibly be?

Why shouldn’t you have a life that makes you wake up every morning and think “Wow what did I do to deserve this?”

4. Go With the Flow of Change

One of the biggest mistakes that you can make in any endeavor is to stick to rigidly to the old axioms and ways of thinking.

As Bob Dylan says, “The times they are a changing” and if you want to succeed at the game of life then you need to be able to change and adapt with the times.

This is true in every area of your life from your health and business down to your relationships and spirituality.

For example, if you do not change and adapt your exercise regimen to your body as you age, you are going to injure yourself or hit a plateau.

If you are not adaptable in your business, you will become like Kodak and follow your “Old Ways” straight into obsolescence.

Or if you are in a relationship and you are not able to evolve and adapt to your partner’s growth and maturation, you will quickly find yourself in a miserable relationship or all by yourself.

As Bruce Lee said “Be like water”, be willing to change and adapt to the world around you.

5. Greatness Takes Sacrifice 

No one has ever achieved greatness without sacrifice.

No one has ever joined the halls of the masters without blood, sweat, and tears.

If you want to be remembered, realize that it will take sacrifice.

You will lose friends, girlfriends, and maybe even family.

You will lose sleep, leisure, and years of “having fun”.

But in the end, if you are committed to the right thing, it will be worth it.