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Virtue – Audio

Hi, I’m AJ and welcome to this month’s VIP lesson. Our topic is Virtue.

What is virtue or what are virtues? A virtue is a characteristic of excellence, a characteristic of excellence and value. In other words, these are universal characteristics, traits that are valued by society, by most people, by many people. For example, honesty could be a virtue. We say that’s a virtue. It’s a characteristic. It’s a trait of someone that people value and respect and admire. It’s a characteristic of excellence. If someone is a very honest person we usually think of them as an excellent person. So there are many different virtues.

There are two kinds of virtues we’ll talk about this month.

1. Foundational

2. Higher

What’s the difference? Foundational, what does foundational mean? First of all, we have a foundation– the noun– is the cement, it’s the hard stone, it’s the hard rock that you build a house on top of, or a building. So the foundation is at the bottom, maybe it’s stone, maybe it’s concrete, maybe it’s just hard rock, maybe it’s wood, but it’s something that you build on top of.

So this idea of foundational values means these are the most important values that the other values, higher values, religious values, spiritual values, depend on the foundational values.

They are built on top of those foundational values. So the foundational values, they’re the root, the core.

This month we’re talking about the classical masculine virtues, the classical masculine virtues. You can say values or virtues, but we’re going to talk about virtues. Classical masculine, masculine meaning male, men and classical meaning, the virtues that have been valued for thousands of years. Classical means, going back a very long time. So these are the male, the masculine virtues that have been valued for thousands and thousands of years, going all the way back to the ancient Greeks, the ancient Romans, the ancient Persians, the ancient Chinese, the ancient Japanese, Indians doesn’t matter. You look all around the world, all different cultures going back thousands and thousands of years. We have these foundational masculine values.

Now women you might be thinking, well, I’m a woman why are these important to me? They’re important to you because you have many men in your life… fathers, grandfathers, uncles, cousins, friends, boyfriends, husbands, sons, grandsons. So you have a strong influence on these men, on these males in your life, so you need to understand these masculine values too, why they’re important and how you can support them and encourage them in the men in your life. Also an important topic for women.

We have a big problem in the world, a very big problem. We, meaning men especially, because men are under attack and the masculine virtues are under attack. A massive attack in the media, it doesn’t matter you watch any TV show, almost any popular TV show or movie or book or in the news, certainly in schools and academia, meaning in universities. Masculine virtues are under attack. Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere men are being told that men are not good. Men are bad.

The masculine virtues are not good. Men need to change. It’s an attack, a planned attack on men and as a result a lot of men in the world feel lost. They feel confused. They feel like they’ve lost their purpose. They feel like they’re not valued and they’re getting a lot ofconfusing messages about how to be a man. What does it mean to be a man? What are the most important virtues for a man? Getting a lot of messages and very confusing messages about this, as a result, many men are very lost and unhappy. This is especially true when I look at younger men and boys.

There’s a spiritual crisis among men and boys in the world, all throughout the world. I see it everywhere. I see it here in Asia where I’m recording right now. I see it in the United States. I see it all through the Western world. I see it everywhere and that’s why these foundational masculine values are so important.

The foundational masculine values are based on the very old, old, old roles of men as protectors and contributors and leaders. We must have these foundational values first and they are based on protection and contribution to your family and your tribe that’s what it’s about. These foundational values are not universal. They’re for the whole world. They’re focused on your family and your tribe that is your number one purpose in the world as a man is to protect and contribute to your family and your tribe.

Your family that’s obvious right, your wife, your sons, your dad, your mom, et cetera, that’s a clear definition. What do I mean by tribe? Tribe, that’s your brotherhood. Those are your family members, of course, but also the few people that are very, very close to you that you have a strong connection with, that you have great loyalty to. Those might be very, very close friends, for example. So I have a few very close friends. I consider them part of my tribe and they’re basically part of your family. Your extended family, your cousins, uncles and aunts, some of them you may consider as part of your tribe, maybe all of them. I consider all of my extended family to be part of my tribe, so my biggest purpose is to protect them and contribute to them.

Now, what are the benefits of these foundational values for men?

Number one, when you develop these foundational values you will feel more confidence.

This is another problem, a big crisis among men I see everywhere in the world, they lack confidence, no confidence and especially the younger men, and boys and teenagers. Oh my God they have no confidence, they’re so doubtful about themselves, so worried about what other people think they lack confidence and that’s a terrible feeling. I know I have had that in the past. I still have it sometimes, but in the past I completely lacked confidence. It was a terrible, terrible feeling. It made me very unhappy.

Number two, a lack of purpose.

Again, we see this in the world during this kind of crisis for men that most men feel like they don’t have a purpose, a bigger or a deeper purpose for their life, a meaningful purpose for their life. When you develop these foundational values you will get a feeling, a strong feeling of purpose in your life and that will make you much, much happier.

Connections, when you develop these foundational values you will have stronger connections, stronger connections with your male friends, stronger connections within your family, a better family, a stronger family, a better tribe, a stronger tribe, better friendships, stronger friendships.

Finally, you’ll have a happier family, whether that’s your parents, sisters and brothers or if you’re married and you have kids, then that family as well.

Women, what about you? You need to encourage your men to develop these virtues. See, again, in the media we’re seeing so much where women are being trained to constantly criticize men and to laugh at their virtues and to try to tell men they need to be more likewomen. And this is a big, big mistake. Women, you don’t want your men to be feminine. You don’t want your men to act like women, you will be miserable if you do this. So you may think it’s funny. You may think it’s a good thing to do to try to push your values on the, but it’s a disaster. It will make you unhappy in the end. It will destroy and weaken your relationships with all the men in your life.

On the other hand, when you encourage the men in your life to develop these virtues, your relationships with them will become much stronger, much more positive. You will respect them more. You will value them more and they will value you more and respect you more. So women, you have a very, very important job and that is to encourage the men in your life, encourage not criticize, encourage the development of these virtues in them. Encourage them to get stronger in these four areas.

So what are they? What are these foundational virtues for men?

Number one is strength. Strength is the first virtue, the first foundational virtue for men.

Strength is an obvious one. First of all, it has a very direct meaning and that is physical strength. Now obviously, I’m not a super strong, massively muscular guy. You can look at me, you can see that. However, I have been doing a lot of body weight exercises… pull-ups, pushups, sometimes I do weights… and I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten stronger, I feel better about myself. I have more confidence, so it’s not just physically I feel better. I feel better mentally and emotionally. I get more respect from people automatically.

Strength is a foundational value. Think of it, it goes back thousands of years because the role of men traditionally was to fight, was to fight and protect the family and the tribe. If you were weak you couldn’t do that well, so strength, strength, strength is number one. Men, you need to develop your strength. Now that means first of all, yes, physically you need to get stronger.

So, if you’re physical weak it’s okay so was I. I’m still not Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger obviously, so it doesn’t matter it’s just about improving, getting better, getting better.

You need to start lifting weights or doing body weight exercises. Every man should do this. It doesn’t matter your age, your quality of life will go up. Your physical quality of life, how you feel will improve so much when you do strength training. Even better your mental and emotional life will improve. You’ll feel more confident. You’ll feel more alive. You’ll feel more powerful.

Super important, it doesn’t matter what your age is. If you’re very weak now, if you have terrible health it doesn’t matter, wherever you are you can always improve. Strength is important.

Another way to think of strength, another part of strength is what we might think of as mental strength. This means when problems happen you don’t cry and fall apart, but you get tough and you face the problems and you deal with them. So you have some mental toughness.

That’s also strength and you need to develop that. That is also something you can develop and improve, so strength virtue number one.

Virtue number two courage, courage.

Courage is the opposite of cowardess, it is the opposite of fear. Now again, nobody respects a coward, a cowardly man, a man who’s afraid to fight for himself, a man who’s afraid to fight for his family, a man who’s afraid to fight for what he believes is right, who runs away from difficulty. So courage is like fighting spirit. It’s your willingness to fight. It’s your willingness to face your fear. Fear is fine we all have fear. I have lots of things I’m afraid of, so do you. It’s absolutely human, 100%. No problem feeling afraid, the problem is when you let fear control you.There’s a great phrase, ‘feel the fear and do it anyway.’ So it’s okay, be afraid, be terrified it doesn’t matter, but still go forward and do what’s necessary. Courage is an important value, virtue for men. And again, all cultures around the world for thousands and thousands of years, as long as we can go back in history have valued courageous men. The cool thing is, that even men who are maybe physically weaker, if they’re very courageous they are valued.

Courage gives you power and strength. It can balance your weakness.

Foundational value, foundational virtue number three, mastery, mastery of some valuable skill.

Mastery of a skill or more than one skill. What kind of skills should you master to be a man, a virtuous man? A skill that contributes to your family or tribe. A valuable skill. A skill of contribution. Now, it’s fine to have other hobbies, like let’s say golf. Okay, if you love golf and you want to master golf, no problem with that of course, do it for sure. But golf, unless you’re a professional golfer and making money, golf probably does not contribute to your family or your tribe very much. So, while it’s fine to master other skills, you need to master at least one skill that will contribute to your tribe, right, your group; your family and your important group in your life.

Now, that might be a business-type skill so that you’re making money and supporting your family that’s great. It might be physical fighting, self-defense so that you can defend them. It might be a verbal-type of self-defense, persuasion. Whatever it is or maybe it’s several things, very important, mastery.

Finally, number four, honor, the fourth foundational virtue for men, honor.

What is honor? There are lots of different meanings of this word. People talk about this word differently. I’m gonna focus on the idea of loyalty, loyalty to your tribe, to your family and your tribe. Honor, doing things that benefit your tribe, showing and acting in a way that’s loyal to your tribe. So you don’t cheat people in your tribe. You don’t backstab them. You fight for them and you do things that benefit your whole tribe, your whole family and tribe; honor.

These are the four. What about the higher virtues? Because I know a lot of people are thinking, yes, but what about this or that or that. There’s lots of different religions talk about different virtues. What about generosity? What about forgiveness? What about compassion?

Those are all good things, but here’s the deal. This is why we’re talking about foundational.

Compassion, generosity and forgiveness without these four virtues, are corrupt. Corrupt, meaning they become bad, they become evil.

What do I mean by that? Let’s think of some examples. Let’s say compassion, kindness…

most people agree kindness is a good thing. I agree too. Kindness, I’m a generally kind person, but if you have kindness without strength, if you’re a weak person, your kindness turns into something bad, it becomes corrupt. We see this all the time. I see it all over in my life with lots of people I’ve dealt with in my life, I’ve seen this. People who are kind but they’re weak.

Guess what happens when you’re weak and you’re kind? Nobody respects you. People use you and they start to take from you. They start to treat you badly.

Your kindness becomes something that hurts you, and people who are kind and weak are usually very unhappy people. Without strength kindness is not good. Kindness is not a good thing unless you’re doing it from strength. This is also true of forgiveness. Let’s say you’re fearful, you’re a cowardly person, someone does something bad to you in your life and you forgive them. But you’re not forgiving them because you are strong and you have let go of allyour fear and anger. No, you’re doing it because you’re afraid to tell them that they did something bad. You’re afraid to fight them or tell them that they’re bad, that you have a conflict with them.

So your forgiveness is coming from fear and cowardess it’s corrupt, it’s bad, it will make you feel bad, the other person will not respect it, it will not help you. You will not feel better. When your forgiveness comes from strength and courage and honor, then that forgiveness is real. A lot of people point to religious, let’s say Jesus, I’m not a Christian even but if we look at the example of Jesus and oh, He was such a kind man, so forgiving. True, but if you look at the stories he also was strong and courageous, He was not weak, He was not a coward, He was not dishonorable. He had the strength and the courage and the honor, so that His forgiveness then was powerful and real.

So that’s how these higher virtues of whatever, if they’re religious or other ethical… they’re important yes. They’re good, yes, but they must be based on this foundation. You must develop these foundational virtues first if you’re going to feel strong, confident and if you’re going to develop those higher virtues in a good way.

All right, how do you do it? That’s your next question. How do I do it, AJ? How do I develop these? Right now I’m weak and fearful, and I don’t really have any good masterful skills, what do I do? How do I become a more honorable person? In the commentary I’m going to give you some specific strategies and methods to improve in each one of these areas, because in each one of these areas I also was weak. When I was younger I was weak in all four of these and I’ve developed them gradually. It’s always about improvement. You don’t have to be Superman, but improving will improve your life in all areas and you’ll start to have again, a feeling of confidence and purpose in your life and that’s what I think most men want and desire.

Women, you want your men to have that, because then you will be happy and you will have much better relationships with them. If they see you as someone who is encouraging these virtues and making them stronger, more courageous, more masterful and more honorable, they will love you even more. They will treat you even better. You’ll have a great relationship with them.

So, I’ll see you in the commentary.

Oh last thing, my fingers maybe you’re wondering, AJ, what’s happening with your fingers.

Follow me on Twitter or Gab and I’ll tell you why my fingers are taped. If you follow me already then you already know.

So my Twitter is AJHogeGab.ai. My gab is also my name, AJHoge.

See you in the commentary.