Want to develop an unbreakable Warrior Spirit that will allow you to overcome any obstacle you face?
What is the purpose of the Warrior Spirit in modern times?
What’s the dark side of the Warrior and how can we avoid it?
In this blog post, we’re going to answer these questions and more.
The Warrior Spirit is something that is becoming increasingly rare.
At Mastermind Talks in Ojai, Randy Kelley (a former Navy Seal sniper), revealed that Hunters (warriors) and Farmers are genetically determined. The gene is monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A).
The percentage of Hunters has dropped dramatically since the agricultural revolution down to 10%. Part of this is due to the evolution of civilization. Fighting and war was a normal part of life for the majority of men for millenias. War has not stopped, however most people never have to consider going to war. In 2015 only 0.16% of the entire US population was in ACTIVE duty (500,000 soldiers). For the rest of the population, war is something you watch in movies and on CNN.
My Journey Into Warriorhood
The drive to become a warrior started after I was bullied in school for a couple of years. They were older and far bigger than me and I hated the fear.
A few years later, I started lifting weights and that started my warrior’s journey. We would push ourselves in the squat rack until we were literally falling down on the floor and couldn’t walk — and I loved it.
The real journey began the day I received a letter in the mail with a nickel attached on top. It said, “There are parts of the world that my life isn’t worth the nickel attached to the letter.”
I proceeded to read and it told a mind blowing story about a fighter who challenged 3 neo-nazi skinheads and beat the shit out of 2 of them and the third one ran. It sold some videos called “Combat JKD”, which I took my precious newspaper route profits and invested in.
When the tapes arrived, and I started watching them… I had found a GOLDMINE. This was next level fighting and self defense technology.
I became obsessed (like I often do) and coaxed my friends to start training with me daily. We were training every day and we couldn’t believe how fast our skills were leveling up.
I wanted more, so I contacted Christophe Clugston, the creator of the fighting system and made a deal to bring him to Moncton Canada to do some seminars. We did over 30 seminars in 6 years.
Practicing neck cranks
We did countless hours of training — pushing myself to my limits and beyond. Whether it was taking hundreds of leg locks… Doing 5 minute rounds… Getting choked out… Or having thousands of punches thrown at my head… It was exhilarating.
Here are some of the most powerful fighting/warrior principles I learned that you can apply in your life and business:
1. There’s no failing — there’s only stopping.
Imagine if a tiger takes a swipe at cape buffalo and misses… does he think “Shit I missed! What a dumb mistake! I better go home now.”
No… he immediately, WITHOUT ANY USELESS THOUGHTS, keeps on swinging until he’s killed his prey.
The only way you can fail on your goals and missions is if you STOP. Whatever hiccups, challenges, disasters you will face are all part of the journey.
There is absolutely ZERO BENEFITS in beating yourself up when you make a mistake. Yes, you can analyze the mistake later and learn from it. But please, let’s all stop the self-flagellation.
Your first 10 business ideas may go bust — but you still haven’t failed unless you STOP.
The principle here is unrelenting persistence.
2. Constant forward drive.
In a life and death battle, the best defense is offense. Bruce Lee’s JKD’s was built around INTERCEPTION of the attack. Many of Clugston’s cutting edge self-defense technology like: The Wedge, The Pop-Up, The Crash and more are built around this concept.
Musashi was one of the greatest warriors of all time. Read “The Book Of 5 Rings”
The samurai’s mindset was always to leap forward into battle. They believed there was only one way to face the fray and that was frontally and only one direction, forward.
The same is true in business. Success comes from constant forward action. Yes, contemplation and strategy are critical. However, 90% of our time should be spent DOING THE WORK. Constantly driving things forward to the next level.
3. Best technology wins
In combat, you can beat people with superior technology. Whether it’s defending against an attacker and using a powerful move he’s never seen… or an army decimating an opponent with superior weapons — the principle is the same.
Brits conquered the Zulus with superior weaponry.
The Zulu warriors got decimated in Battle of Isandlwana against the British. Zulus who were fierce warriors and had greater numbers, had little hope against the Brits’ guns since they were armed with spears.
In business and marketing, you can have a massive advantage by using the most cutting edge marketing technologies.
Keep in mind, that technological advantages don’t remain for very long. The world quickly catches up. So always be looking for the latest breakthrough.
4. Training > Studying
There are times when you won’t be able to use better technologies/strategies to win.
You will have to win with SKILLS.
I see a lot of people making a major mistake: they think that the magic is in studying or in the knowledge.
The magic is in the SKILLS AND ATTRIBUTES you build and this is why TRAINING has far more power than studying.
You can read about squats for months. Until you put your ass in the squat rack with weight on your back and take it to the bottom and come up, you’re lost in the realm of theories.
You can watch a million YouTube videos on kicking, however until you go and do 5000 kicks on a heavy bag — you’re gonna be uncoordinated and ineffective.
This is true for business skills also. You can listen to someone talk about copywriting for days, but until you put the pen to paper — it’s just a bunch of concepts rolling around in your noggin.
Yes books, videos and seminars are all helpful and useful. However, the fast track to success is in doing SMART TRAINING designed around uploading the right knowledge into your nervous system.
5. Unbreakable Will
Clugston, who was a professional fighter in 4 different sports, often says that PRO Fighting comes down to SKILL AND WILL.
In the UFC, many fights are evenly matched. You have two highly trained warriors that are at the same relative skill level.
How do you win? By having an unbreakable will and breaking your opponent’s.
If you listen to many of the top UFC fighters in their interviews, they will come right out and say that their strategy going into the fight is to “break their opponent’s will”.
In almost every UFC event, you will see a few fights where one of the fighters will breaks in the third round.
The key is: developing mental toughness.
6. Facing All Fears
Courage isn’t the absence of fear — it’s feeling the fear and walking right through it.
All fear is an illusion. An illusion created by our egos to try to protect us. It was useful when it came to protecting us against deadly threats. However, in the modern world — there are very few of those.
Getting our feelings hurt, failing, getting denied, having a project go down the drain are perfectly safe to our physical well beings. Our egos want us to believe that those things are dangerous and bad for us. They’re not.
Our egos want to protect itself against the emotional pain. “What if we fail?”… “What if we get rejected?”… “What if…”
What’s the worst that can happen? Can you handle that? If so — move forward.
Remember the first principle: there’s no failures — there’s only stopping.
No matter what happens, just keep driving forward (second principle).
The Warrior’s Formula For Success:
Skill + Will + Strategy + Courage
In the King, Warrior, Magician, Lover book, the author sums it up perfectly: “(The Warrior)… has an unconquerable spirit, that he has great courage, that he is fearless, that he takes responsibility for his actions, and that he has self-discipline. Discipline means that he has the rigor to develop control and mastery over his mind and over his body, and that he has the capacity to withstand pain, both psychological and physical.”
How To Build Warrior Spirit
Now let’s explore the processes that one can use to become a warrior. Yes, the current genetic level of warriors is estimated at 10% — however I believe that it’s possible to SWITCH ON certain genes through training and experiences. This happens through the amazing process of epigenetics.
Dawson Church, in his groundbreaking book “The Genie In Your Gene”, cites hundreds of scientific studies that show how beliefs and emotions can trigger the expression of DNA strands. He focuses on a class of genes called Immediate Early Genes or IEGs. These genes turn on within a few seconds of a stimulus. They can be triggered by thoughts or emotions.
One of greatest quotes that sum up biological adaptation is from Leo Costa Jr in the book “Big Beyond Belief” and it’s “Your body becomes it’s function”. In other words, your body becomes what you train it to be. Run long distances and your body will transform into a runner. Lift heavy things and your body will become strong.
From my personal experience, in order to switch on the warrior gene you will have to face tremendous levels of stress, fear and pain. There’s no other way around it. I believe that by exposing yourself to those stressors – your body’s warrior gene turns on as a survival mechanism.
If I look back at who I was as a teenager, I didn’t have the Warrior Spirit. I was scared of confrontations. After putting myself through intense training for years, I’m not the same man.
Here are ways that I believe can help you develop Warrior Spirit
Competitive Martial arts
Jiu jitsu, MMA, wrestling or any style where you’re fully engaging or sparring will do the trick. For the record, I DON’T believe that styles like “Kung Fu” who practice forms will help you become a Warrior. You need the stress and intensity. You need to be tested, pushed and challenged.
Self Defence
Things like Krav Maga, or Clugston’s Combat Systems develop an intense Warrior Spirit. When you train to survive life and death encounters, there’s no room for fluff and fantasy. You learn to embrace the fray. The mindset is as Clugston says, “Evolve Or Perish”.
Sales
All lifelong salesmen are hunters. How else can you overcome constant rejection in search of a “YES”.
I remember knocking on doors in the middle of February in Moncton, Canada when it was -20 celsius. “Would you like a free painting estimate to paint your house next summer?” Most people would slam the door in my face. I would get 1 or 2 “yeses” a night.
Then on the weekends, I would go and do the estimate. I was 0/10 on my first ten painting estimates. I was the only College Pro franchisee without a sale. I still remember the turning point… It was frozen on a brutally cold day (-25 celcius) doing my 11th estimate. I felt like a failure because I had struck out ten times in a row. Plus, I was in afraid that if I did get the job I would mess up this beautiful home.
I was frozen, scared and dejected and every bone in my body felt like quitting. Somewhere inside of me the Warrior Spirit came and said “You can do this… LET’S DO THIS! Come on man! DON’T FUCKING QUIT!” And I went for it and got the job.
I went on to win “Most Improved Franchisee” of the year with a closing rate of 33% that year. And won it again the second year after improving to 50% closing ratio.
Had I not summoned up the Warrior Spirit and would of quit… I would of possibly never tried business again and would be miserable doing something I hate right now.
Business
Most entrepreneurs are hunters and warriors. Business is possibly the most competitive arena in the world. As Mark Cuban says, “…business is a 24/7 job where someone is always out there to kick your ass.” Business a global game where evolution is happening all around the world non-stop.
In order to become an entrepreneur, you have to embrace uncertainty — especially in the beginning. You don’t know if you’ve got the skills… you don’t know if you’re idea is good enough… you don’t know if the market will embrace it… Are you too early with your idea? Are you too late? That’s just the tip of the iceberg of the unknowns.
But an entrepreneur doesn’t sweat those questions. He has confidence in his ability to resolve all of them and succeed.
Facing fears
As a baby, I fell down into a basement, hit my head on the concrete and got knocked out. My aunt who was babysitting me thought I was dead. Fortunately I was ok, but it caused an irrational fear of heights throughout my childhood — to the point, where I would feel fear being up on a ladder a few rungs up.
I decided to smash that fear when I was 19, so I decided to skydive. They trained us for the entire day telling us all the ways we could die. It was time. I got in the plane and was terrified. I was doing my best not to think about it by just being present. I watched the first guy go and that made me even more scared.
This wasn’t a tandem jump where you’re strapped to your instructor. This was a static line — where the instructor would throw a mini shoot that opened up my main shoot.
Now it was my turn… I grabbed the wing of the plane, stepped on the wheel and hung in the air. Yes I was dangling from the wing of a plane. Every cell in my body wanted to crawl back in the plane.
I waited for the signal. Instructor looks at me and screams: “GO! GO! GO!” And I let go…
The shoot opened, but it was twisted so I started twisting. I spun several times and it finally settled. And it was the most epic view I’ve ever seen. I peacefully floated down to the ground into the bullseye and won “Best Jump Of The Day”.
And since that time, my fear of heights was removed. I’ve gone rappelling with Canadian SWAT teams for fun and done other height related adventures.
Will Drills
Another interesting method for developing a Warrior’s Spirit is “Will Drills”. As the title implies, you’re using will power to do these drills.
The first Will Drill was: chew on the pepper for 5 seconds (seeds and all), show it (by sticking out your tongue) and swallow.
So Christophe and I went to the local grocery store shopping for Habanero peppers. We scored some and went home.
A group of us were there ready for action. We were excited. How bad can a pepper be?
I chewed on the pepper, showed it and swallowed. I was waiting for the pain. After a few seconds, I’m feeling good “This isn’t too bad”. And then BOOOOOOOOOM!
A wave of fire hit my palette. It felt like someone had a blowtorch in my mouth. It was relentless. Tried every idea you can dream of: water (makes it worse), ice (useless), ice cream, milk… there was no escape.
After about an hour, the pain dissipated and I was high from the endorphins my body pumped out to fight the pain.
John Saylor And Christophe Clugston. Toughest Men I Know. They Both Ate 12 Habaneros That Day
Of course, the real warrior test is the SECOND one. The first one, you’re going in blind. You don’t know the beast behind the door. Once you’ve felt the hammer of suffering coming down on your tongue and you decide to eat a second one — you’re NOT an ordinary human being any more.
The most I ever ate was 4 in 8 minutes.
The Shadow Warrior: The Sadist And The Masochist
Each archetypes has a dark side and when the warrior becomes lost he can become destructive to himself and those around him.
The flip side of the warrior gene is, we can get lost in anger, spitefulness and revenge. If you’ve got the 2R or 3R of the MAO-A gene, you’re going to produce less MAO-A and have more circulating adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin.
In business, when bosses put people down, harass and mistreat people — that is the destructive warrior in action.
When people become workaholics driven by deep anxiety and are constantly burning the candles at both ends because they have the capacity to endure the pain — this is the sadistic warrior in action.
As Abraham Maslow wrote, “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”
In today’s world, the warrior spirit is something that we only need to access occasionally. When facing major struggles internally and externally, fears, and obstacles. In most situations the other male archetypes are often far more useful such as the lover, wizard and king.
I believe we can temper the dark side of the warrior by doing intense spiritual work.
The Spiritual Warrior
Perhaps the most useful area of our lives to have a Warrior’s Spirit is when we’re 100% committed to the Spiritual Journey.
There’s a major shift in weaponry and mindset as a Spiritual Warrior. It’s a concept that most warriors reject and fight against and that is: SURRENDER.
Surrendering
Surrendering in a spiritual context leads to a completely different place than surrendering on a battlefield.
This might sound counterintuitive, however you do not want to FIGHT your ego. That is one of its traps. It’s a sophisticated trap that many spiritual students fall into.
The key is to deflate, disconnect and transcend the ego. The best weapon against the ego is to constantly surrender it’s whims and survival mechanisms.
Dan Millman in “Way Of The Peaceful Warrior” wrote, “…surrender — letting go of attachment to arising thoughts. This is how you cut free of the mind.”
And believe me, my ego is still here and intact. However, by doing years of intense Spiritual Work I’ve been able to deflate it significantly. In the video below one of my Spiritual Mentors explains his experience of the death of the ego.
The Death Of The Ego
The best book ever written on the power of surrender is: “Letting Go: The Pathway Of Surrender” by David Hawkins.
Here’s a video of Dr. David Hawkins, explaining his experience at the Final Door (which is the death of the ego), the fear that arose and how he faced it.
https://youtu.be/wnYJS5lg72w?t=1m24s
Removing The Fear Of Death
Inside the book: King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering The Archetypes Of The Mature Masculine, the authors state: “The Warrior traditions all affirm that, in addition to training, what enables a Warrior to reach clarity of thought is living with the awareness of his own imminent death.”
In a talk in the University of Moncton, Christophe Clugston revealed Russian research that boiled down all fears into 3 key categories:
- Fear of suffering
- Fear of the unknown
- Fear of losing identity
For many people, “death” hits all 3 of these.
The fact is, 100% of all humans who have lived until now have died. There is tremendous power in embracing this fact: you begin to appreciate every moment that you’re alive.
How would you live your life today if you knew you would die next week?
Since I’ve been shot with a bullet that was a half inch away from hitting my neck (hit my wrist instead), I’m acutely aware of the brevity of life. LIFESPANS ARE SHORT FOLKS. Even if you live until 120 years old, that goes by in the blink of an eye. I’m almost 40, which means that if I live an “average lifespan” I’m halfway there. Even if if life extension technology comes and I live until 120, I’m 33% of the way there.
I know a lot of readers are gonna feel uncomfortable after reading this section. As someone very wise once said, “Don’t fear dying, fear not living”.
The Two Possibilities After Death:
- You die and there’s no afterlife and you don’t even know you’re gone.
- There’s an afterlife.
I’m a believe in B, however I spent over a decade being an agnostic/atheist. And even as an atheist, I had no fear of death because I realized I wouldn’t be aware that it was over. I would just cease to exist and that was it.
The Warrior Is Just A Bodyguard On Standby
The Warrior Archetype is NOT the be all end all. However, I believe it’s a foundational archetype that all men should build. Once you’ve built it, it will always be there ready to serve you when you need it.
It’s best to see your Inner Warrior, as a bodyguard. He’s always there vigilant, ready to pounce if need be, but when there’s no need — he’s standing down.
Would love to hear you share your journey into Warriorhood. Please share your story below.
