Warning: This post will say a lot of crazy shit that you may or may not agree with. All I can ask is that you give it a careful, honest read and don’t just pick out particular lines out of context to shit on.

The key to being successful in anything is humility. You must be humble before people that are smarter and more experienced than you, you must be humble before your craft and the top people in your craft, and most importantly, you must be humble before reality. Reality is a cruel motherfucker and it doesn’t care how you feel, what society has taught you, what other people think, or what you think you deserve. You can change reality and become successful, but you must first be humble, learn reality’s rules, and succeed using those rules.

Humans often fail at being humble because our ego warps our view of reality. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus wrote that most men live in a fantasy world created by their own mind. Humans are apes and an ape tribe works best when an “alpha” ape makes all the decisions and the “betas” obey the alpha ape. The betas submit because they want to be accepted by the tribe, which is controlled by the alpha. If the tribe rejects a beta, he is sent back into the jungle alone, with no bananas or monkey pussy to enjoy. For that reason, most of our ape emotions are wired to prevent being rejected. Human beings also evolved to see their relationships as hierarchical, with every person occupying a specific place in that hierarchy. Scientists have observed in bonobo tribes that every ape literally has a ranking number and if a lower ranked ape acts disrespects a higher-ranked ape EVERY SINGLE APE IN THE TRIBE BECOMES UPSET.

These feelings are dangerous in humans. If you see yourself as a “beta” you will be timid, submissive, weak and afraid to do bold things (see American males today). If you see yourself as an “alpha” you may become a psychopathic maniac who tramples on others or a crazy hedonist that just fucks and eats all day without improving himself (see dictators and Mike Tyson). We all know the narcissistic idiot who is not humble and fails because of his arrogance. We also know the depressed loser who fails because he is too afraid to try hard or take risks.

Because of the destructiveness of the ego, human beings have developed methods for controlling their egos. Some of these work, some of them don’t. A lot of times you will hear people in the psychedelic world talking about “killing” your ego. That doesn’t work. Your ego is a part of you like your sexual desire and you can’t kill it – the best you can do is manage it. The key is humble confidence. I will describe to you a method I believe works. I am open to comments.

Step one - Realize that the world operates on rational laws, not emotion. The world does not care about your feelings, or ego, or your place in the imaginary hierarchy. The good news is that the world doesn’t care about anybody else’s feelings or ego either. This may sound obvious, but our ego can make us look at the world in emotional terms, like the world itself was an alpha male that is fucking with us. This is part of the reason early humans came up with the idea of God. Very depressed guys even say things like “the world is out to get me.” It isn’t. The world doesn’t give a fuck about you or anybody else. Reality is just a game that operates on rules. Once you get your emotions out of the way you can navigate these rules and succeed. You just need to control your emotions and ego first (something most people never do). If you absolutely need to give the world agency, just imagine the world loves you and wants you to succeed, and that the world will crush your enemies for you. Why not?

Step two – Disconnect your self-esteem and confidence from tangible things. By tangible things I mean real things that exist in the world: your money, your skills, your social standing, your looks, etc... You should see yourself as having dignity and demanding respect solely because of the fact that you are a human being and have dignity. If you want to get spiritual you can think of yourself as a soul or a child of God or whatever else floats your boat.

This contradicts most advice on confidence, which tells you that you should improve your tangibles to become more confident. Now, I don’t disagree that you should improve your tangibles. You should always be working on becoming a better version of yourself: more fit, richer, smarter, etc... And of course, there is nothing wrong with taking pride in your accomplishments and enjoying your tangibles. And whenever you are in a head to head battle with respect to your tangibles (for example, in a boxing match), you should have confidence that your tangibles are better than the other guy’s. But overall, the bulk of your confidence should have nothing to do with your tangibles.

Here’s why: First, your tangibles are constantly in flux so if you base your confidence on them you will have a bad time. Second, no matter how awesome your tangibles are, somebody will be doing better than you. Third, in the grand scheme of things, no matter how awesome your tangibles are, they still don’t fucking matter. A meteor can hit earth tomorrow and nobody will care about how many Ferraris you have. Let’s say you are rich and you feel confident because of that. Well, what happens if you lose all your money? What happens if you move to a neighborhood where everybody is way richer than you? What happens if you get involved with people who don’t care how much money you have? Etc...

This is, of course, easier said than done. All of your emotions and your social conditioning have probably taught you to equate your confidence with your tangibles, so it will be hard to feel confident just because you exist. It will take work and you may need to do some exercises, like saying daily affirmations in the mirror to yourself. But eventually, your self esteem will be based on reality, not on what other people think of you or what you have.

Step three – You should think that you are better than other people This advice goes against everything Americans are taught from an early age, but please hear me out. Life is usually a competition and whenever you compete with somebody else you have to feel like you are better than them. Period. Women are hypergamous and like men that are “above” them, right? So the only way you will get women is if you believe that you are better than them. How is she going to believe you are better even if you yourself don’t? Of course, you shouldn’t say that you are better or act like you are better than other people (people don’t like that), but in your heart you should feel it and then work hard accordingly. Furthermore, your feelings of superiority should not be based on any tangibles you may or may not have. You should just feel like you are better just because fuck the other guy. If you want to get spiritual, you can think that your soul is better than theirs or that God or Buddha loves you more. Whatever. By the way, I’m not just making this up – if you study most cultures and societies that have been successful, you will see that they had an inherent belief that they were superior to their neighbors. America, as a nation, currently believes it is superior, and Americans who do not have that belief are much less successful than those who do. After America won World War 2, it prohibited the Shinto belief in Japan that the Japanese were superior to their neighbors, because it realized how dangerous it was.

Of course, in reality, nobody is better than anybody else. The idea of hierarchy exists only in people’s minds – it has no basis in anything real. But hierarchy is in our genes and if you want to successfully navigate reality you need to believe that you are superior to other people in the hierarchy. From our earliest days most people are constantly being told they are inferior. In middle school kids make fun of us, teachers tell us we won’t succeed, media and pop culture shows us unrealistic shit and makes us feel like we are failures, girls turn us down, etc... There is a reason that depression and anxiety is at an all time high in America right now. We need to fight against that counter-programming by thinking we are actually better.

Aren’t you telling me to be narcissistic or arrogant? Nope. Narcissists pretend they are better by pretending to have better tangibles. That is why they are always bragging about what they have, what they’ve accomplished, etc... Narcissists are actually very insecure of their place in the hierarchy, so they literally need to create a fantasy world where they pretend to be at the top of the hierarchy. A lot of narcissists are incredibly deluded and actually have terrible confidence. If you have a transcendent, spiritual belief that you are better than others, you won’t need to brag, or be an asshole, or treat others like shit. You will just know you’re better.

You will also not be arrogant if you disconnect your ego from tangibles. You can still be humble and think you are better than other people. Let’s say you want to be a great programmer, so you study under Jim Bob, the best programmer in the world. If you think you are actually a better programmer than him, you would be stupid and fail. But if disconnect your ego from your tangibles, tou will be humble and listen to him, do what he says and learn from him, all the while secretly thinking you are better than him. You will keep working until you actually become a better programmer than him.

Mind you, you shouldn’t walk around all day thinking about how you’re better. This should only be a back up belief that only comes up when your confidence is challenged. But like I said, most men in our society suffer from feelings of inferiority, and this is a valuable weapon.

Why can’t I think I am equal to other people – why do I need to think I am better? Look: In a perfect world, everybody would be equal. We would all hug and hold hands and sing “We are the World.” But unfortunately, humans didn’t evolve to look at each other as equals. Compared to every other person, you are either better or worse. And whenever you are confronted with somebody that is trying to beat you at something, thinking you are equal to him won’t help. You need to think you are better.

Think of it this way: when you release a domestic pig into the wild it grows hair, tusks and its body changes to become a boar. It is the same animal but it physically changes due to its new behavior and settings. The same way, you need to change yourself into a confident man, which is a completely different creature than the “beta.”

Step four: Improve your Tangibles Most advice on confidence tells you to improve your tangibles, AND THEN you will feel confident. Mine is the opposite: you should feel confident, and then you will improve your tangibles. You see, your ego is one of your strongest emotions, and if you think you are inferior, you will not have the emotional weaponry to get through adversity.

The key to improving your tangibles is taking small steps - put one foot in front of the other. As long as you are working hard and taking small steps, you will improve your tangibles, at least to the extent you can. We are all dealt a different hand and there is some shit that we simply cannot improve. It's impossible to completely disconnect your confidence from your tangibles, but as long as we are improving, we can feel confident in our tangibles, because that is more than most other people are doing, and that is the only thing we can do.

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