Summary: Resilience comes from lived experience and how you choose to build your life

Intro:

If you're here then you've already got some challenge in your life - women don't like you, you have no father figure, you have no friends, etc. But some challenges aren't so passive. Sometimes everything can be going seemingly well then out of nowhere everything collapses into the unknown. I want to share some personal experiences of where significant challenges have been thrown at me, and how I've not viewed them as setbacks, but as an opportunity to push myself into something more formidable each time. My end result is a life where I'm currently happy and satisfied, but where I also know that no matter what befalls in me, I'll be ready to take it on and win.

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My Challenge Free Upbringing:

Without boring you, I was smart as a kid. Incredibly tall for my age, was reasonably popular in my social circles (but by no means was I the alpha, athlete etc) and coasted. My motto was why put the effort in if I can do the bare minimum. I coasted through school, I coasted through sixth form (UK here) and I coasted into Uni. I had a strong family unit, a girlfriend from 18, no major dramas in my life, a decent degree ahead of me, but all I did was sit on my ass playing video games all day. I didn't need to work for anything. Life was easy, but I wasn't happy.

My first year of uni I sat in my dorm room for a year skipping lectures, going home 10 miles away on weekends to see my girlfriend, and playing video games every weekday. I passed my first year, but I'd wasted it. I was 6ft 7, 154lbs, I'd stopped martial arts training that I'd been doing since 12, and I was socially anxious. I hated myself for wasting all that time when I could have been out making something of my time there. I swore to myself after I finished first year I'd go back to living at home and get my life together whilst travelling into uni.

Well I started doing the Insanity program, restarted martial arts training, but everything else still sucked. I was a loser and I knew it, so did everyone around me that knew me.

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Example Number 1 - Suicide:

While I was in my second year my dad had been diagnosed with depression. It was only mild. I had moved on to some crappy weight training so sometimes we'd workout together; really it was the first time in a long time we'd had something in common. He was always very blue collar and I wasn't orientated that way.

In December that year, he woke up one morning to fuel up the car. I got up late and was skipping lectures as usual but was working through some coursework I had due that week. My mum came in to say she was concerned as he hadn't come home yet and he was due to leave for work 5 minutes ago. I wrote it off and half hour later she came back in tears as he still hadn't returned. She rang his work whilst I checked my social media for any local accidents in case he was stuck in traffic (he never carried a phone). The first post on my wall was an article about a car fire down the road from us. Somehow we both knew. I called my grandparents, the police, and within 10 minutes it was confirmed it was my dad in the car.

Long story short he'd gotten up that morning, gone to buy fuel, doused himself in it in a layby 2 miles from home, and set himself on fire.

Naturally we were devastated. There'd been no warning, no note, no immediate cause. Life was no longer easy; this was my challenge.

In the months that followed I dropped out of uni for that year, arranged family finances, knuckled down into exercising routinely, and began putting down the building blocks of becoming formidable as a man. I began coaching martial arts, I returned to uni and became President and head instructor of my martial arts club, I completed my degree 2 years later with a 2:1 in a STEM field. I was the rock for my family. I maintained my relationship with my girlfriend at the time, and ultimately I was forced to rapidly grow up.

I could have been a victim. Christ knows many wouldn't have blamed me for breaking down and hiding in my room for the next 6 months, but what does that achieve?

All of this was shaped by my mantra that everyday had to, in some way, make me a better man than before. I had to rise to protect my family; I was the only man left. Some days, especially the early days, I couldn't think about the day ahead. I'd start smaller; what can I manage in the next hour? What can I do in the next 5 minutes? I couldn't think about the funeral, but I could get up and take a shower. Then I could get my suit on. Then I could go sit in the car. Then I could walk in behind the coffin. etc etc, you get the idea. Break insurmountable challenges down into their manageable chunks.

The gym was my meditation, it built confidence and the halo effect of that pushed me into a successful career in the pharmaceutical industry. I was making £30k plus bonus and benefits in my first job out of uni which was already more than my mother had ever made. It was challenging, I regularly felt anxious or burnt out, but I always came back to the same mantra. You've lived through worse.

What happened to us was terrible, but if it hadn't of happened I would have failed my degree, been depressed and hopeless, and would have been a pathetic excuse of a man. Whilst I'd still love to have my dad back, I wouldn't change the effects it's had on me since; I needed it. It made me. All that upset and anger I turned into fuel.

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Example two - 7 year relationship breakdown

I'd been aware of the redpill from about 3 years into my relationship, but generally was more interested in the debate than trying to live it. I took on the messages of self improvement as they aligned closely with my headspace after losing my dad, but in terms of the approaches to dating/LTRing etc I largely left those to one side. I'm not here to teach you how to be an alpha/chad etc, I'm not claiming to be, but there's something to be learned from this experience too.

I'd been with this HB 5/10 for 7 years by this point and while I'd massively improved over the previous few years, she'd largely remained stationary. Whilst I'd say we were probably equals in the start, there was a growing gap between our outlooks and motivations and we could both feel it. We (stupidly) bought a house together last summer despite me missing obvious red flags and 4 months later I realised I hated living with her. Laziness, weight gain, being unable to hold down a job, and most importantly being a bad role model for potential future children, meant I had a big blowout with her.

Ultimately I broke up with her, then when I cleared out my laptop she was borrowing the next day I saw outlook notifications showing she'd booked a hotel room with her boss for the next night. Despite me splitting with her the day before, I was fuming; clearly this had been going on before we split. I was angry and upset for about a week, but again that old mantra came back. I've been through worse and everyday I have to be better than the last.

Now this post is getting long so I'll spare all of the death threats from her boss, legal issues of her claiming property that wasn't hers etc. Suffice to say she did everything she could to make the following 3 months as unpleasant as possible, despite me having done nothing wrong throughout the entire process. AWALT I guess. They claimed I was intimidating, abusive, controlling, everything they could but thankfully everyone that knew me knew it wasn't possible, even some of her family still chat to me in the street as they know it's all false. I kept a cool head, I knew far more than her and her family in regards to handling the mortgage dissolution and similar legalities. She had let her dad deal with everything as she was incapable, and I ran circles around him.

I took it again, one day at a time. I approached each problem in chunks: I can't afford the mortgage on my own - get a better paying job. I've never dated before - Don't waste time thinking, go and do. I'd put on some minor bodyfat whilst setting up the house - get your fat ass back to working out and double the effort with all the time you've now got.

As a result, I nearly tripled my salary within 2 months to £80k a year, I'm now 6ft 7 and 230lbs with a BF of around 12% currently, I've dated around a bit and I'm seeing a girl that adds something meaningful to my life, and I have a strong unit of family and friends behind me. The best revenge is a life worth lived as they say. For 3 months that was my fuel, I wanted to 'win' the breakup but really I already had, the gap between us was too much for either of us to be happy. Beyond that I had a new found satisfaction from my life that I hadn't felt in years.

There were two main things here that were essential in me succeeding.

  1. I still had that mantra - I've lived through worse
  2. I had been very careful to build up the 'pillars' in my life to provide me with a strong structure in case something new went wrong

The Pillars:

These may differ based on your priorities but here are mine:

  1. Physical Health
  2. Finances
  3. Family
  4. Friends
  5. Relationship
  6. Hobbies

You'll notice that across both examples, one of these pillars has completely crumbled. If I had no other pillars, or if they were too weak, my whole world would come tumbling down and crush me. I lost my family pillar for a while so I fell onto physical health and hobbies. I lost my relationship so I fell onto finances and family/friends. It doesn't matter what your pillars are; if you invest in them they'll hold you up when 2 or even 3 fail.

If I was to plot a line graph of relative success against time, and each pillar had it's own coloured line, you'd see a trend. Every time one pillar fell to zero, the others would rapidly climb up higher to account for the net loss. Let's say we ranked it from 0 to 10 for success. If I drop 8 points in family, you best believe those 8 points are going to be distributed across the remaining pillars ASAP because I refuse to allow anything to set me back. If we tracked my overall satisfaction over time, you'd see that with every sharp drop there was an even sharper increase that follows it.

Conclusion:

  • Horrible things can hit you at any time. The only defence you have is having strength in every facet you can to weather the storm and that's your duty as a man
  • Take on seemingly insurmountable challenges in bite-sized chunks. If you can't handle the day break it down to what you can handle in the next few minutes.
  • You improve BECAUSE of challenges, they're not setbacks, they make you more resilient
  • Every new worst case scenario makes you more competent ready for the next one
  • If you build your house strong enough, it doesn't matter if one of the walls gets blown down, you still have the roof over your head to shelter you while you rebuild it.