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Virtue – Commentary

Hi, this is AJ and welcome to the commentary for this months’ lesson. The practical virtues, the tactical virtues, especially for men but women, these are important too. At the very least women, you need to encourage the men, the boys in your life to develop these incredibly important values/virtues.

All right, let’s talk about how you develop these. What if you’re not naturally strong, courageous, masterful and hopefully honorable? What if you’re not? What if you’re not any of those things? Well, I was not naturally any of those. You can look at my pictures or my videos, you can see that I’m not a super strong body builder or power lifter. I’ve certainly had problems, I’ve been afraid of plenty of things in my life and it took me many, many years to become good at important practical skills in life.

Now, I always had a sense of honor. I always had a sense of strong loyalty that came naturally to me, but let’s talk about how to develop these. Because it’s about developing them. As always it’s about improvement, it’s about improvement. You don’t have to be in the top 1% in all four of these to be a confident man, a respected man among your peers. Among your peers– meaning among other men that are in your group– that’s not necessary. You need to be good at… you probably should be at least very good in one area, at least very good in one area so you can contribute and then you just need to be decently good in the others.

So let’s talk about how do you develop that.

Number one, strength.

Strength is very important, very, very important for men especially. It’s a very important skill that’s why it’s number one, important virtue. Now here with strength, of course, there is mental strength. We can all understand this idea of mental strength, but here I am really talking about literal, physical strength.

Literal or literally – means the direct meaning of something. So I’m talking about the direct meaning of strength which is? How much weight can you lift? How physically strong are you?

It’s important to be strong, why? Many reasons…

Your confidence, your happiness, your personal power will transform, will change for the better when you develop these four virtues. It will completely change how you feel about yourself and your life. You’ll become a much, much happier, a much, much more confident person. You will feel a feeling inside of personal power, the power to get what you want, the power to accomplish your goals, the power of being respected by others. That’s why you need these four virtues. That’s why they’re practical virtues, they give practical useful benefits, so strength is a big one.

How do you develop strength and why should you do it?

1. Number one, when you’re physically stronger you will be more confident emotionally, I promise you. You feel more confident.

2. Number two, is for self-defense.The world is a dangerous place if you travel at all. If you ever go into slightly bad neighborhoods, even if you don’t you could have an aggressive neighbor, somebody might try to mug you. This happens all the time.

To mug – means they try to hit you and then take your money.

So the ability to defend yourself physically is a basic human skill, especially for men. It’s a basic, basic masculine skill that everyone should have. Part of that skill – we’ll talk about the second part when we talk about courage– but the first part of that skill is just physically strong.

If you’re physically strong, generally people won’t bother you. They’ll bother you less and if they do bother you, you have more of the ability to defend yourself. That gives you a feeling of confidence.

Another benefit of strength training, your testosterone will increase.

Testosterone – is the hormone, the male hormone. Women have it too but much, much less.

But for men it’s very important and when you have higher testosterone you just feel more alive.

You feel stronger and more alive. What’s cool is, testosterone helps you build muscle and get stronger, but training, doing physical training for strength will increase your testosterone, so it’s an upwards spiral. You train hard. You get stronger. Your testosterone goes up which makes you have more energy and more strength so you can train more and get even stronger, it goes up, up, up. It’s a positive spiral upward, a positive circle upward.

So how do you do it? There are two basic ways to do strength training. There are many, many, many programs– I’m not going to talk about the many specific programs you can do, just two general ways…

Number one is you lift weights. You lift heavy weights, everybody knows this.

Now, which program should you follow? It really depends on your goals, so you need to go out, read some books, read some blogs, try some different approaches because there are many ways to approach, many ways to do weight lifting.

The other way is body weight strength training, body weight strength training.

Body weight strength training, that’s things like push-ups, pull-ups. You can do body weight squats, lunges, bridges- what are called bridges, it’s a back exercise. Again, there are a lot of good books about this, body weight exercise, body weight calisthenics, body weight strength.

I’ve done previous episodes, previous lessons about this topic in more detail. That’s currently what I do I’m not lifting weights. Well, I do a little bit of weight, I use Kettle Bells but mostly I do body weight exercises and you can get very, very strong just with your body. Look at professional gymnasts or Olympic gymnasts; male gymnasts they are strong, strong, strong, strong men. So either way it’s up to you, but get strong. So you should be doing strength training, depending on your other exercise, at least once a week very heavy and hard, but two or three times a week is also good. It depends on your age. It depends on how much other exercise you do. If you do a lot of other exercise then you can’t do too much strength training because you will exhaust your body. You’ll get really, really tired.

Like right now, for example, I’m doing a lot of Jiu Jitsu so I only do strength training once a week.You can do more. If you’re just focused on strength training only then you could do it two or three times a week or even more, depending on how you approach it. So that’s strength, very simple… lift weights or use your body to get physically stronger. Huge benefits for you when you do this.

Our second virtue is courage.

Courage is the ability to overcome fear. Very important that word, overcome fear. It is not the absence of fear, although that might eventually happen. It doesn’t mean you’re never afraid.

No, it means you’re afraid but you still take action anyway, even though you are afraid. It’s your willingness to fight, it’s your willingness to fight for what you want to fight for, for what’s important for you, your eagerness too.

Now, again, we have two ways to look at this.

One is a very literal direct way of looking at it, fighting. Actually fighting another human being, right again, like self-defense we can call this. I believe every man should do some kind of martial arts, some kind of fighting skill, practical fighting skill. And, if you do a martial art, and when you do a martial art, some kind of fighting skill, I encourage you to do one that is an effective one. Effective, because there are honestly a lot of ineffective, not effective martial arts.

Which ones are effective? Well, we can look at MMA and we get an idea, mixed martial arts, we get an idea of the ones that are effective. But the main thing that you’ll find in an effective martial art is they do real fighting. That means you have an opponent, someone else, and you fight against them with all of your power and energy, 100%. You fight them so you’re not just pretending, you’re not just doing moves against somebody who is not resisting, who’s not fighting back.

What the effective martial arts all share in common is that you have this 100% real fight against an opponent. That other guy is 100% trying to beat you. So which ones are they?

These include:

Wrestling

There are lots of different kinds of wrestling, but against another wrestler they are trying to beat you. They are trying 100% with all their energy and power to beat you, slam you onto the ground and hold you down. Wrestling is a very good effective martial art in all its different forms.

Jiu Jitsu

Mainly Brazilian Jiu Jitsu… again, that’s the one I’m doing. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu very, very effective, especially because of the sparring system.

Sparring – is practice fighting.

So every time I go to Jiu Jitsu I fight against other guys and they are trying to beat me with all of their energy and all of their power, and right now I’m a beginner and usually they do beat me again and again and again. Of course, I’m using all my energy and power to not get beat and to beat them. That teaches you that mental courage. It encourages you to be very mentally tough, to not be afraid of the fighting.

Now, some people prefer more like striking type martial arts. For those we would look at…Boxing Kickboxing (different types)

For example, you have kind of a Western type of kickboxing, which is more karate-based. You have Mui Thai kickboxing, which comes from Thailand. It’s very effective. You have standard western boxing, all of those are very, very effective. Again, the reason is because the other guy is hitting you as hard as he can, he’s trying to knock you out. So it’s not just play acting, you are really fighting hard.

There are also some kind of military based martial arts, which can also be very good, especially if they use this kind of 100% sparring method.

So men, when you do this, when you learn to fight, to really fight and you become confident in your ability to fight, your confidence, your feeling of strength and confidence inside of you, you will become a completely different person. Something deep, deep inside of you will change.

Yeah, you’ll still be afraid sometimes but you won’t have that, what I call, paralyzing fear.

Paralyzing fear – is the fear that causes you to freeze, to stop, to be afraid of doing anything, to not take action.

I mean, I can feel, I’ve been doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu now only for about, well, a little under three months and in just that short time my feeling of confidence has grown so much, because again two, three, four times a week sometimes more, I am fighting and fighting and fighting hard, hard fights against other guys. Guys who are younger. Guys who are faster. Some guys who are bigger. A lot of guys who are much more skilled than me, and by doing that again and again and again, my confidence is so much stronger now. I just feel much calmer and much stronger. I know now that I can fight. I’m not afraid of fighting anymore.

I used to be afraid of fighting, like most people, I’m not afraid of it anymore. Does that mean I could definitely win against anybody? No, of course not, but I’m not afraid of it and that will change your life. When that fear goes away or if you have the fear but you still take action anyway. So many men in the world now, so many people in the world are so afraid all the time and fighting is one of the big ones. People are so afraid of other guys, like guys who act tough.

So this will change your life, I promise you. Do a real effective martial art. Make it part of your life, men.

The second thing I recommend for developing courage is public speaking- public speaking.

This is more like social courage, communication courage right. This is a kind of more of a mental courage, because this is another huge fear. So courage is about overcoming fear and speaking to a big group of people scares most of us. It used to scare me.

Now I won’t say I’m not fearless with public speaking anymore that’s not true. If I have to speak to a different audience, one I’m not used to, like let’s say a bunch of business people, yeah I’ll still feel nervous but I’ll overcome it and I’ll do it. I feel very, very confident that I’ll do a good job. But that took me a long time. It took me lots and lots of practice, because again this is a very powerful skill that will develop your courage social, to speak up, to communicate effectively, to be more influential with your communication. Again, it will give you a great feeling of confidence and fearlessness.

Now, there are different ways to develop public speaking. I’ve got a couple videos about it on my YouTube channel. That’s YouTube.com/ajhoge, so you can watch those videos. The DaleCarnegie course is excellent, I recommend that one highly. There’s Toastmasters International, a public speaking club. It’s very inexpensive and they’re everywhere around the world, they’re international so that’s a good one too. You can just practice at home for that matter, there are lots of good books about public speaking, but develop the skill. You don’t have to become a professional public speaker. You don’t need to become in the top 10% even, just become comfortable at it. Just become decently good. It will change your life.

Our next virtue is Mastery, mastery.

Mastery of a practical skill. Now, it’s perfectly fine to master any skill you want, but for the masculine virtues you really need to master a skill in one of two areas.

1. Area one is fighting, which we talked about under courage and martial arts.

2. The second area, the big area is finance. Money, making money.

In our modern world making money. Now a long time ago men had to hunt and fish. It’s all about getting food, about getting resources for your family, for your group, for your tribe, contributing in a useful way to your family group, tribe. So yes, long, long ago that was just hunting and fishing and those are still good skills, I recommend them. But, in our modern world, our modern economy it’s really about making money being the most common way to do this.

So, you need to master the skill of making money. Do you need to become a billionaire? No, you don’t need to become Bill Gates or Donald Trump that’s not necessary, but you do need to be self-reliant. You need to be able to reliably make money to take care of yourself and your family and your tribe. Absolutely you need to learn those skills and they are skills, and sadly our schools do not teach financial skills. They don’t teach business skills.

Even if you get a business degree, by the way. If you go and get a Master’s in Business Administration, an MBA, a graduate degree in business. You will still not know very much about making money for yourself.

You’ll learn how to be a good corporate employee, but you will not learn how to become rich or how to become financially independent. For me that’s what Rich means. Rich doesn’t mean billionaire or even millionaire. Rich for me means financially independent it’s about freedom and that is the benefit of this mastery, of mastering a skill in this area. It’s that you gain freedom, the choices to live how you want, live as you choose, do what you want for yourself and your family, for your own values. Live for your own values not what other people tell you to do. That is the huge benefit of financial freedom.

You have to learn it and it takes time. Where do you start? I recommend the Rich Dad books by Robert Kiyosaki, good basic place to start Rich Dad Poor Dad, and he has Cash Flow Quadrant, those are two very good books by Robert Kiyosaki. The very basics of personal finance. Of course, there are many, many other books about this. I also recommend our Business English Conversations course. This will tell you how to really do well in your job, in your career and get promotions and get more money. We’ve had a lot of successful members of that course go on and get promotions, make more money and do very well. That’s BusinessEnglishConversations.com.

So the Robert Kiyosaki books, BusinessEnglishConversations.com and of course there are many other books. It takes time, but you must master this skill at a decently good level.

The final skill, honor/honor. The final virtue I should say.What does it mean to be honorable? Here we’re not talking about a religious idea of honor or anything like that. Really, it means loyalty, loyalty to your group. Who’s your group? Again, you decide that I can’t decide for you. For me, my group is my family and a few of my very closest friends. There’s only a couple people I consider super close friends as part of my tribe. I call it my tribe, right, my extended family, but mostly it’s my family and then a few other people, and I am very, very loyal to that group.

So you have to decide this, this is the first step of honor is to decide who is your group? Is it your family? Some people have very, very negative experiences with their family. Maybe they were abused, maybe there’s all kinds of horrible stuff, so you have to create your own group.

Maybe it’s a group of men that you train in martial arts with. Maybe it’s a small group of very, very close friends you’ve known for years and years, and you trust them and they trust you, and you’ve been together through very tough times. So you know when things are tough they’re still going to be with you and you’re still going to be with them.

That’s a key thing, a key test of loyalty. Loyalty and honor, you have to give it but you also must demand it from your group. You don’t just give it, give it, give it and they take it. If the people in your group are not honorable you need to get rid of them. You need to kick them out of your group, or at least in your mind decide they’re not part of your group. So yes, you give loyalty and you work hard to contribute to and help your group, your family or your group, your tribe, I’ll call it your tribe. It’s super important, you must be loyal to them.

Being loyal to them especially means you have to help them and stand by them when they are having a hard time, when they are having a very difficult time, when everything in their life is bad, terrible and crap. Maybe when they do something you really don’t like and don’t agree with. That’s when your honor and loyalty is tested and you have to be true to them and help them. And as I said it goes both ways, you must demand this also from them, from your tribe.

So you must demand that they do the same so that when you are having a tough time, when you do things they don’t like, when your life is terrible and everything’s horrible they are helping you. They remain loyal to you and if they don’t get rid of them they’re not true friends, they’re not even true family, in my opinion, if they don’t stay with you during those hard times.

It can be very tough to realize this. I’ve had this happen in my own life several times when I’ve had really hard times and I’ve realized, oh, some of my friends are not really my friends.

They’re not really loyal, but you know what I’m glad it happened because I cut those people, I decided they’re not my friends anymore and I stopped talking to them. I don’t have any contact with them anymore. I don’t need those people in my life. I recommend the same for you.

So, this honor goes both ways, you must develop it and you must do it when it’s difficult.

Sometimes it’s difficult to demand it, you also must demand it from them and get rid of people who are not honorable from your group. Get them out of your group, they will poison you and your group.

So that’s how you do it. Some very simple ideas for developing these four incredibly important virtues.

I’m on GAB.ai/ajhoge. Send me a message, tell me about these virtues, how you’re developing them, what you think of them. Good luck this month. Work hard to develop these virtues this will change your life. Men, this will change your life completely. These four virtues will make you feel more alive, more strong. You’ll feel more natural like who you really are, no fear, no shame, so important.Women, when your men have these virtues, you will feel safer with them. You will love them more. You will have much better relationships with them, so important.

All right, I’ll see you next time. Bye for now.