Thought

The populace is soft.

They panic and shriek at the slightest inconvenience.

It’s a conditioned response.

Everything today is geared towards safety and convenience.

I love to imagine the way things used to be, before the world was conquered, when men were hard and safety wasn’t guaranteed.

I don’t have any illusions that it was “better” then, I am a fan of cities and electricity: hot showers are undefeated.

And yet, I do feel we’ve taken it too far. By giving into the comfort wholesale, one loses his edge.

Today, a man must manufacture some difficulty in his day-to-day life to halt his transformation into a formless blob.

Here’s 3 practices to toughen up:

1. No complaints

When things are tough, don’t cry about it.

When a problem arises, the first time you speak about it is an acknowledgement, any subsequent commentary is whining.

This serves 2 purposes:

First, by resisting the urge to complain, you will be strengthened. All strength is gained through resistance.

Second, you’ll appear calm and stoic in the face of problems. Appearance precedes actuality and the external informs the internal.

2. Abstain

Pick a thing that you rely on but isn’t necessary, then abstain from it for a set period of time.

For instance, I stopped watching YouTube for 30 days. It’s not that YouTube is inherently bad, but a mindless reliance on it is.

Cut out a comfort for a while to show yourself it’s unnecessary.

The less things you rely upon, the tougher you will be.

3. Exert

Nothing builds more mental toughness than pushing your body.

Why?

Because the mind always quits before the body does.

5 hours in the gym per week (2.9% of your week) puts you in the top 10% automatically.

The discipline of showing up consistently week in, week out builds a toughness of its own before you even add in the physical and mental benefits from the exercise.

Tactic

I’ve been getting back into Kettlebells lately.

The man who popularized them in America, Pavel, is a famous Russian strength coach.

He has a workout routine called Simple & Sinister.

It consists of 2 movements:

1. Kettlebell Swings

2. Turkish Get-Ups

It’s a fast and brutal method that trains your whole body.

As Pavel says, it’s enough for most people. We tend to overcomplicate things like health. If you committed to doing this one routine for 6 months your entire body would transform.

Grab the book in the link below.

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I hope this week’s 5 T’s have your T levels surging!

If you found this newsletter valuable, share it with a man who wants to increase his T and invite him to join our brotherhood.

In Victory,

Alexander