Weakness essentially comes from a lack of discipline. Where there's no discipline, there's fragility. So, when we talk about weakness we're not JUST talking about physical weakness (though physical weakness, too, leaves you fragile), we're talking about anything that makes you vulnerable.

Over-spending, for example, makes you fragile if your money supply is removed or reduced. Habits like this are the most dangerous because they can ruin you, and they're unnecessary.

Watch the video to learn more habits that make you weak, vulnerable, and fragile, and counter-habits that make you robust and antifragile.

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We should have thought about this on day one, but what most of us think about when we're asked what we want from or in life is an end - the house, the yacht, the truck, the family, the job etc... What you want from life cannot be something you get, but something you do.

Greatness is won in the worst of situations.

The more I get to know extremely successful people, or read about their lives and story, their struggles are present and persistent, just like mine.

There’s no example of this not being true, at least not that I can think of.

Even a guy like Dwayne Johnson, a fella who’s on top of the acting world, moving into that same position in the apparel world, seems to have it all. He didn’t. In fact, his struggles may be greater than either you or I will ever face.

At some point in his life a decision was made that he was not going to succumb to a bad situation, rather, he’d be great even when the situation isn’t.

We see the private jets, the fame, the millions of dollars, but no matter how you break it down, achievement is won through struggle. The greater the achievement, the greater the struggle.

We see where he is, we hear his words about how hard his life was, how he had 7 bucks in his pocket, how he failed at the biggest dream he ever had (playing in the NFL), but we can’t get past the fact that he has, by all accounts, won.

So the words of struggle fall on deaf ears. They may motivate us for a second, but then our reality of mediocrity sets in and we allow our situation to diminish how we act.

Where you are isn’t where you’ll be.

One thing we have to realize is that where we are is not where we’ll always be, if we’re willing to work, be disciplined, and stay the course (don’t get pulled off of the path you set even by something that appears to be a new opportunity if you’ve committed to a path already).

Don’t get discouraged by your present situation, be challenged by it.

Anyone can be great when times are great, but you only make the great times by being great when the times aren’t great, when the situation is horrible, when you want to quit and give up and feel sorry for yourself.

Be great even if the situation isn’t perfect.

The essential task you’re faced with in life is to struggle well. To act like a winner even if you’re not yet a winner. That’s how the winning takes place.

You act like a loser, you’ll lose. Act like a winner and you’ll win.

“On the other side of your struggle is something good.” Dwayne Johnson

That’s the thing about success, it is on the other side of the struggle. It isn’t immediately after we start on a path or set out to do something.

In fact, and I’m realizing this a lot, when you set out to do something great you’re usually hit with a gargantuan roadblock, an intense or a long stretch of resistance where resilience is the only thing that will get you through it.

All you can do is be the best you can be. Sounds cheezy, but it’s true. You can control you, the effort you put in, how you take care of yourself, handle yourself, how disciplined you are and the amount of work you put in.

You can’t control the circumstance, but over time the circumstance will evolve and rise to the level that you operate at.

Be great.

We’ve always needed to know what it means to be a man. Teaching this is nothing new. The problem with our current society is that we don’t have teaching manhood programmed into how we teach everything else.

In Roman times, boys ran the streets wearing dirty clothes and had to fend for themselves. They would engage in battles, the classroom, too, was combative, they had to defend their point against a crowd, not merely in their own head or onto a piece of paper.

We’ve always taught young men what it means to be a man, but today, with fathers not sticking around, with a school system that increasingly looks down upon masculine qualities and virtues, our young men, our boys, even our middle aged men, are now left to figure things out for themselves. Sad!

Who suffers? Everyone! The economy, women, kids, everyone. So, within this article we’ll discuss with it means to be a man, but also how to be a man. You won’t leave here with mere theory, but with steps by which you can take action.

Where We’ve Gone Wrong

1. Moral virtue doesn’t exist in you being harmless. The modern ideal being pushed for men is to be softer, to call yourself a feminist. You are not morally superior because you are more harmless, you are useless.

2. You are not perfect. You can be better than you are. This is an issue, telling kids and humans that they’re perfect just the way they are. We all have potential, but that potential is realized by improving and working hard.

3. What comes naturally isn’t what’s best. Easy things ‘come naturally’, the good things in life require effort.

4. Being a man is the ideal, it’s a pursuit. It’s not a bad thing, but a call that every male must heed. This idea of a patriarchy doesn’t exist. Men and women have worked together throughout history, never in opposition. Good men who do great things benefit everyone. Weak men who are soft, hurt those around them.

What It Means to Be a Man

Fundamentally, you cannot be useless. A useless man is weak, doesn’t earn and provide, is soft, complains, sees himself as a victim. How can you not be useless? Follow the following steps as if it were a checklist.

1. Be Dangerous.

That is, learn how to protect, to defend, to conquer. At our base, men are protectors. We’re defenders. Good men need to be more dangerous than bad men, or else we’re in trouble. You’re also responsible for others, and therefore useless if you cannot defend them. Learn to fight. Get good with guns. It’s not a choice, it’s a duty.

2. Earn, succeed, win.

Get good at something. That’s how you win. Winning isn’t a matter of getting something for nothing, but achievement. Achievement takes effort, persistence, and purposeful practice. To add to our fundamental need to be protectors, men must also be providers. If you want to know what it means to be a man, look no further than the head of a household.

Get good at something. Earn as much as you can for those who depend on you.

3. Improve, evolve.

Practice daily improvement. Have an actual routine set up to help you do this. Don’t leave it to chance. Every morning I’m up between 5am and 530am. I read for 45 minutes, head to the gym for 45 minutes, then sit down to work. At the end of the day I’m back reading/studying.

Without these habits in place, I don’t do what I set out to do. It’s a duty to end your life in a better position than where you started it. Be ambitious, be daring. Your ambitions are insights into why you’re here, listen to them, add fuel to them, and hunt them down.

4. Aim high.

Again, be ambitious. One aspect of manhood is competition. We need it. We actually see increases in our testosterone levels when we compete, and again when we win. It acts like a reward system, rewarding our participation in life....

The best a man can be? We're seeing this call for masculinity to be labeled as 'toxic'. The reality is, that their definition of toxic is actually something you should aspire to be. I dive into the APA's recent definition of toxic masculinity, how they got it wrong, and why you should fight back.

How to stop being lazy. The answer to ‘how to stop being lazy’ is simple, effective, and easily implemented, but it may not be what you want to hear. If you actually want to know how to stop being lazy, if you have drive behind that desire for an answer, you can stop being lazy, very quickly actually.

The problem: most people THINK they want to stop being lazy, but they don’t. In truth, they love laziness. It gives them an excuse for not becoming what they could become, and not reaching their potential. But you’re different…

You genuinely do want to stop being lazy. You’re craving an answer, and I’ll give you that answer in 3 simple steps:

1. Have a plan. If you don’t know what you have to do, or what to do, you’ll do either the wrong things, or even worse, you’ll do nothing. If you’re not planning your day, start! And don’t plan it in the morning of that same day, plan it after the previous work day is done.

For one, you’ve just worked your entire day, you’re very aware of what needs to be done tomorrow, so write it down, and make sure it brings you closer to your ideal goal. It will also clear your mind, rid yourself of worries about what more has to be done so you can relax at night and hit the ground running the next day.

If you don’t know what you should do, you’ll end up doing nothing. Make a plan!

2. Shut your brain off. Most people rationalize inaction. They come up with a plan, and then they second-guess whether or not that’s what needs to get done. They think they have a better idea of what should be done when it comes time to act, or they begin to wonder if their plan is correct.

Then, they end up doing a bunch of different things that aren’t the thing they initially set out to do. They end up moving sideways, not forward. When you decide to do something, when you’ve put thought into it and planned it, do it!

This goes for everything, whether it’s waking up early, don’t decide not to the next day, you already made a decision! Or, a task you set out to do, or a chore you set out to do. Don’t think you now know better, especially when ‘better’ is watching TV or sleeping in or even reading when you set out to do something else.

Think, by all means, but when the decision is made, move forward with it!

3. Practice being decisive. Practice making quick decisions, trusting your gut, and then moving forward with that decision. At first it doesn’t matter whether or not the decision is the correct one, just practice moving forward, acting on your choices, and making fast, firm choices rather than spending minutes, hours, or days thinking about something.

Most laziness is just a lack of action and decision-making. It’s more a matter of avoidance than just pure laziness.

You do not have to be lazy. You do not have to think constantly about whether or not you’re doing the right thing. Right now, the important thing is to simply MOVE, get up, and get going!

If you create a plan for your day, and then you act on that plan if it’s a plan that requires effort and a full-days work, you will not have the opportunity to be lazy.

Finally, a bonus: give yourself no choice, ever, to be lazy.

If you have a TV watching problem, cancel your TV account or unplug it!

If you don’t wake up when your alarm rings, set 5 alarms, and put them in places that require you to stand up to shut them off, and don’t you dare get back into bed!

If you search too often on the internet when you’re supposed to be writing… shut your internet off and get to work.

Give yourself ZERO options. Make it an environment where only the correct decision can be made, and if you do this enough, you’ll begin to achieve things that were once pipe-dreams, and man, that is going to be a wonderful feeling!

Episode 13: Gillette, Shut the Fuck Up! by Chad Howse

Episode 12: Should You Ever Be Content? by Chad Howse

Episode 11: It's Not Easy Being the Alpha (but if that's who you are, that's who you have to be) by Chad Howse

Episode 10: How a Man Gains Confidence by Chad Howse