The 4 pillars to focus on as a man
My first ever Memo2Men. Buckle in we’re going to cover a ton inside today’s memo.
Since I started AboveMen the vision was to learn, create, teach, and coach on the 4 pillars to becoming an AboveMan. So I thought it’d be fitting to cover the 4 pillars in the first memo.
Before I dive into the pillars, it’d be helpful to know what it means to be an AboveMan and why your goal by your very nature is to become one… whether you realize it or not.
What Does It Mean To Be An AboveMan?
As men, we have this intrinsic draw deep inside of us, to become the best, most dominant version of ourselves. That’s your higher self, your daimon (as the greeks would say), or your AboveMan (As I would say).
In Ancient Greek, Aristotle coined the term to represent such a life where we are fulfilling this desire of being our best self, or as it would now loosely translate, Our highest human good. The word is Eudaimonia, and that version of us is called the Daimon.
Then fast forward to modern psychology and the man behind Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, Abraham Maslow, pointed out a similar finding about men. As he put it, “What one can be, one must be”.
And it makes perfect sense why this is the case. Look back 300,000 years when we were hunter-gathers. It was a survival of the fittest for us humans, and specifically the men who must hunt, kill, and protect the tribe. So we literally had to become the most dominant players in our geographically landscape or else…
We’re going to be someone else’s lunch… or even worse… We couldn’t pull a bird and propagate our genes… Imagine not having Rizz was back 300,000 years old…
So for over 300,000+ years the body and brain you currently read this memo with was optimized to pursue growth and ultimately live with Eudaimonia. Mastery of mind, body, and environment.
Fast forward today, that draw we all know is inside us, doesn’t always get the attention and energy it deserves…. and it’s percentage of attention is rapidly dwindling…Why?
Well that’s because of the other part of us that is also present, our lower self, our demon, our hedonic boy. He serves a purpose in our identity, but ultimately will always get in the way of becoming that best version of ourself.
In today’s dumb-proof world, where even the most retarded people (literally) can still survive their entire life by doing absolutely nothing, our lower self has flourished all too much. Pair the comfy life we’re born into with the endless and easily available sources of ‘cheap dopamine’ and you’ve got yourself a perfect breeding ground a world of Hedonic Boys.
He’s the version of us that keeps us in comfort. He chooses the chips & chocolate when we know we shouldn’t (or don’t want to). He pulls our phone out when we want to be focused. He brings us to our knees and gets us to watch porn and jerk off yet another time. He’s the one that gets us to succumb to going out for just 1-2 drinks with the boys yet end up wasted at 2AM chasing 4s…
Let me make one thing clear: The world is currently ran by Hedonic Boys. More on this in another memo, but this is the very reason masculinity and men are crumbling.
So, at any moment, you must decide, who will you listen to? Who will you act as?
Your AboveMan or your Hedonic Boy.
To answer the question now: When you listen and act as your higher self the majority of the time, you become your higher self in reality. You will be an AboveMan.
As Earl Nightingale once said: You become what you think about MOST of the time.
In summary, he is an AboveMan who takes consul by his AboveMan more than his Hedonic boy.
Little hack here: If you ever want to feel silly listening to your Hedonic Boy… Just imagine you’re in an executive board, Nice long table, high rise building with city-spanning views. You look to the head of the table to get consul from your advisor and you see the 9 year old version of you telling you what to do. Do you trust his judgement on what you should do? Now replace the 9 year old with that masculine, dominant, war-ready mother fucker that you COULD be. He gives you direction, how does that differ in your mind?
In another memo I’ll further break down the contrasting differences of the AboveMan & Hedonic Boy.
But for now we will keep it simple:
Majority of time operating as your higher self = AboveMan
Majority of time operating as your lower self = Hedonic Boy
The 4 Pillars To Becoming An AboveMan The Majority Of The Time.
Although the goal is to operate as your higher self more than your lower self. Really I want to operate in my higher self 90+% of the time. I want MASTERY.
But if that’s overwhelming for you, all good. Just aim for the majority of the time as a baseline. Either way, the approach to getting and staying there doesn’t change, only your commitment to each pillar will differ from me to you to the next guy.
As an overview, the 4 pillars are:
- The body: Sculpt a Warrior Physique
- The mind: Move from boy psychology to man psychology
- The soul: Discover and align to your god-given purpose
- The heart: Open your heart to you, your lover, life, and the world
Few things to note before we expand on each.
- You’ve probably worked on 1 or 2 of these, great. However, the difference between have 50% of them mastered vs. 100% isn’t a 2x increase, it’s more like 10,100,1000x increase in your ability to live.
- The order in which they sit are strategically placed this way. You must attack and master in this order as well. You can certain improve each simultaneously but there must be a priority of attack.
- To explain further: Your physiology (body) drives your psychology (mind), which is lead by your purpose (soul), and it’s all influenced by love (heart)
Pillar 1: Your Body
The body is the vehicle which we get to experience life, some of you forget this, otherwise you wouldn’t neglect and destroy it so much.
The stronger the body is, the better experience of life you get, it’s really simple, but hard to implement in today’s toxic world.
The goal with pillar one is get into and stay in homeostasis for as long as possible.
This is the natural point which our body is functioning at it’s highest, most balanced level.
My standard of this is the following:
- Look Shredded. You have muscular body with low body fat that can be maintained year round. You have a naturally amount of muscle your body wants to grow into with relative ease as long as you work the right inputs over a consistent time. I think 10-14% body fat is goal all men should aim for.
- Feel healthy. An AboveMan isn’t shredded but broken on the inside. You have high energy levels that can be sustained all day with no dips. You hardly, if ever, get sick. You sleep effortlessly. Your bowel movements are regular and consistent.
Pillar 2: Your Mind
First why is mind after body, after all, doesn’t everything start in the mind? The mind, like our life experience, is limited to the bodies optimization level. Example is trying to think when you’re tired. Doesn’t go so well. You MUST get the body dialled in.
Now for the mind… there’s numerous ways to look at what it’d mean to master the mind.
For the sake of becoming an AboveMan, the lens I take is through operating on boy psychology vs. man psychology.
When you operate through the lens of the boy, you are self-centred, unable to manage emotion, and pursue pleasure over purpose.
When you operate through the lens of the man, you are service-centred, able to manage emotions at a high level, and pursue purpose over pleasure.
Like the definition of what it means to be an AboveMan, it’s similar here. The only difference is, to master the mind is to operate through the lens of man psychology all the time, and when you do operate from the boy psychology, it’s controlled and contained.
Why would you even want to operate from the boy?
The boy is where play happens. When you have fun, enjoy yourself, chase girls, crack jokes with other men, this is from the boy psychology. The boy never dies off, you just become in complete control of his time steering the ship.
It’s like a Dad taking his son to the playground. They get there, the boy goes and plays, in a world of his own with no perception of time and space. He could play there all day.
The Dad sits and watches, thinking about the time and how he needs to go home and work. His responsibilities to others riffle through his head.
After 30 minutes, the Dad tells the boy, “Time to go son”
In boy fashion… “No! I want to keep playing”
“I must go work, we need to go” Dad shoots back.
It ends in the boy crying as they walk away.
The Dad emotionless as he knows what needs to be done.
The Dad didn’t compromise. He maintained control and contained the boy’s fun to 30
minutes.
That’s how mastery of the mind works in a nutshell.
The depth and detail of the man psychology has no place for a single memo. For my curious and impatient readers, Go explore the book: “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover” By Robert Moore & Doug Gillette.
Pillar 3: Your Soul
Ahh the soul… wtf is it lol. Who knows. I don’t even fully get it.
But I know when I listen and align with it’s desires, life continues to get better and better. My best experiences in life have been from listening to my soul’s whispers.
Up until recently to follow your ‘purpose’ or even to say you have a god-given purpose was a bit of a woo woo belief.
However, the tides are turning but even if they weren’t… my belief would remain. When a man seeks, finds, and aligns with his purpose here on earth, life become in a way, magically. The ups and downs all seem to be all for the better.
In this pillar I believe it’s your duty to find what you’re destined to do here on earth. That may evolve and change over time but at each chapter, seek it out. The quickest way to figure out what direction to look in to uncover your purpose is to define your values. These are the things which bring the most energy, alignment, and fulfillment. These are incredible indicators of what your purpose might in this current season of your life. A book and man that gave me great insight here was The Values Factors by Dr. John Demartini. A ‘prodigy’ of him is Lewis Mocker. He’s provided incredible tools to take John’s teachings further inside his School of Mastery.
Another angle is the Japanese view, Ikigai.
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Ask yourself:
- What do you love to do?
- What are you good at or willing to learn?
- What does the world need right now?
- What will people pay for?
With the advent of the internet, number 4 makes virtually everything a paying career. Pretty wild.
For me, here’s my Ikigai.
- What do I love? I love to learn, create, teach, and coach on health, masculinity, and dating woman. I get extremely energized and fulfilled when I sit down 1:1 with a man and listen deeply about his situation with a girl he’s dating or self image issue and then provide guidance on what he needs to shift… Frankly I’m getting little fired up just thinking about it.
- What am I good at? Well I’d like to think I’m really good at teaching on complex topics and bring them into solidified concepts that I can install into another mans life. (You can be the judge)
- What does the the world need right now? Needs strong, masculine men… BADLY.
- What will people pay for? A health, ripped body, confidence in themselves, clarity on their goals, and a loving relationship.
Pillar 4: The Heart
Let me tell you, this is the single most overlooked pillar as a man. There is good reason for this. We’ve been sold a lie. We’ve been told you shouldn’t show emotion. You must keep cool at all times…. blah blah blah. This was a ploy to keep men weak… and limited even if they get the first 3.
The heart is an incredibly powerful TOOL you can use to attract anything you want into your life.
Yea… how’s that for WTF are you talking about… but it’s true. Will you believe me? That’s on you. Given it’s power and complexity. I won’t cover this aspect too much for now. There’s much to work on with the first 3. Just know, the more you can love and feel love. Be it loving yourself (which I guarantee you need to do more of), a woman, your family, friends, the world, the better life gets.
So there you have it. The 4 pillars. Body. Mind. Soul. Heart.
When you master these, you will become an AboveMan. You will operate from your higher life the majority of the time… honestly 90% of the time when all 4 is mastered.
The 10%? That’s when you let the boy go and play in the park ;)
So for today’s memo, ask yourself, where are you with the 4 pillars?
- Body: Are you in the best shape of your life? Do you feel amazing with all-day energy?
- Mind: Are you operating from boy psychology or man psychology the majority of the time?
- Soul: Have you discovered and aligned to your purpose?
- Heart: Do you love and feel love? sometimes? often? daily?
What’s 1 thing you can do to improve the pillar that needs the most work?
With LOVE + GRATITUDE,
Cameron.
