the mind pillar

High Value Tribe is the transformation from MINION TO MASTER.

EVERYONE WALKS OVER A MINION.

He is a passive victim – life happens to him, he does not make life happen.

A MASTER IS IN CONTROL.

He makes things happen. He takes charge and takes responsibility for his successes, and his failures.

HIGH-VALUE MEN ARE MASTERS OF

THINGS

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Masters of Emotions

What happens when someone cuts you off in traffic?

Do you get pissed off, pull up next to him, and try and drive him off the road. If you often say “that person made me so angry”, then you are a MINION to your emotions.

DO YOU CONTROL YOUR EMOTIONS, OR DO YOUR EMOTIONS CONTROL YOU?

If one bad driver can piss you off for the rest of the day, that driver is controlling your emotions and your emotions are controlling you.

HE IS LIVING RENT FREE INSIDE YOUR HEAD – HE OWNS YOU.

Emotions are neither your friend nor your enemy – they are either your master or your servant. You either control them or they control you. YOU GET TO DECIDE.

This is how you master your emotions:

A) DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE EMOTIONS

INTENSE EMOTIONS ARE NOT ALL BAD.

Emotions make our lives exciting, unique, and vibrant. Strong feelings can signify that we embrace life fully, that we’re not repressing your natural reactions.

IT IS GOOD TO GET PUMPED UP WHEN YOU TEAM WINS.

IT IS GOOD TO BE LEFT BREATHELESS BY A SUNSET.

IT IS GOOD TO BE FILLED WITH SADNESS AT THE PASSING OF A LOVED ONE.

These strong emotions show you are alive.

BUT AT TIMES, YOUR EMOTIONS CAN FLY OUT OF CONTROL.

So how do you know when you emotions are getting out of hand and leading to potentially negative consequences? Sometimes it is obvious that an emotion is negative – anger, emptiness, frustration, fear, guilt, loneliness, depression, resentment and jealousy. Men, however, are not good at understanding how we feel.

Here are some markers to identify negative emotions:

they affect your interaction with others (like when you want to drive that shit driver off the road and into the ditch),
when it causes trouble at work (like when you want to slam your bosses head into the elevator door),
when you feel the need to make use of substances (drugs and alcohol) to manage your emotions,
you are prone to uncontrolled outbursts (like when your wife asks you to pass the salt, and you reply “you have ruined my whole fucking life’)

B) AIM FOR REGULATION, NO REPRESSION

Controlling your emotions means turning down the volume on them, not repressing them. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being drilling a hole into you cranium and 1 being radio silence, you do not want to push them all the way down to 1. This means you bottle them all up, and when you least expect it, one small event triggers breaks the bottle and all the shit comes flying out and you find yourself on the cover of Newsweek for opening fire at a Bon Jovi concert.

You want to dial the volume down to a 5 or 6. You can hear them in the background but they are not pounding on your eardrums like the Krakatoa volcanic eruption.

WHEN SOMETHING PISSES YOU OFF:

-COUNT TO TEN

-HUM A TUNE

-TAKE A DEEP BREATHE

-STAY AWAY FROM HEAD BANGING MUSIC

-TUNE DOWN THE ANGER TO A QUIET ROAR

C) IDENTIFY WHAT YOU ARE FEELING

If I had read this 5 years ago, I would have told you to fuck off! I don’t know what the hell I am feeling – I am pissed off, that is how I am feeling! Unfortunately you need to dig a little deeper than “pissed off”.

Consider this example: You have been seeing someone for a couple of months. You send her a message: “Hey there sweet cheeks, lets grab a drink on Saturday night”. Two hours later, they reply: “Can’t, busy”. You go bubonic, throw your phone against the wall and kick the dog. They brushed you off, and did not even have the decency of making up a lame excuse.

Rejection is cruel. They said “Can’t, busy” but you heard something very different: “You are repulsive, disgusting, clumsy, ugly and boring. I would rather go to the dentist than have drinks with you”.

You are disappointed, confused and furious. Now, let me ask you a simple question: is it possible that maybe, just maybe, they were NOT SAYING THOSE THINGS?

PEOPLE ONLY SAY NO WHEN SOMETHING DOES NOT FIT INTO THEIR PLANS – 99.9999% of the time, this is not personal.

MOST THINGS ARE IN YOUR HEAD, NOT THEIRS

Maybe that person was dealing with other issues, and therefore had other plans – visiting an ill grandmother.

We are fundamentally IGNORANT of other peoples plans.

YOU NEED TO GET MORE INFORMATION!

Ask if they are OK, when they will be free, and then go for a run (and don’t check your phone for a couple of hours).

D) WRITE THIS SHIT DOWN

If you had said this to me 5 years ago, I would have told you to shut the fuck up. Why do I need to write this stuff down. Then I discovered that there was incredible power in writing – it is organized thinking. You are forced to put structure to your thoughts and you will be amazed of what comes out of that pen, pencil, keyboard.

When you wake up in the morning, get into the habit of writing down EVERYTHING that is pissing you off. A client hasn’t paid you for two months, the small minded bureauctratic idiot from the embassy did get back to you about your visa, there is a delay in the delivery of a package to an important client.

WRITE THAT SHIT DOWN NOW

Get those thoughts OUT OF YOUR HEAD ASAP AND ONTO PAPER – otherwise it will spend the entire day NARROWING YOUR bandwidth and limiting your ability to execute your manly business…..AND WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT CALL IT A MOOD JOURNAL – STRUTH, we are trying to man things up here!

E) DO NOT BEAT YOURSELF UP

That little voice inside your head can be ruthless. It does a pretty great job in reminding you about all the fuck ups you have made in the past:

-YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE WRITTEN THAT EMAIL TELLING THE WHOLE 3RD FLOOR THAT YOUR BOSS WAS A DICK

-YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE DATED THAT PSYHOPATH FROM HUMAN RESOURCES

-YOU SHOULD HAVE LISTENED MORE CLOSELY TO THE ADVICE FROM THE TAXI DRIVER

We are always fucking up because we are greedy, shallow, vain, lustful, immature; and our self hatred tends to grow.

YOU ARE HUMAN AND YOU ARE GOING TO FUCK UP.

YOU NEVER HAVE PERFECT INFORMATION BEFORE MAKING THAT DECISION TO MARRY THE STRIPPER FROM VEGAS.

YOU NEVER KNOW HOW THE ECONOMY IS GOING TO PERFORM BEFORE CHANGING YOUR JOB.

Visibility about the future is not great. There are landmines everywhere.

YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE HASTY, IMPULSIVE AND STUPID DECISIONS.

FORGIVE YOURSELF AND MOVE ON!

F) STRESS IS A KILLER – KEEP IT AS FAR AWAY FROM YOU AS POSSIBLE

How effective do you think you are in managing your emotions when you are stressed out? You come back from a shit day in the office and find your wife in bed with the Amazon delivery guy. I am going to say with almost perfect certainty that it is going to be difficult to restrain your urge to string him up by his balls and dangle him out the window.

The best way to handle stress is to do everything possible to be in the headspace that it does not affect you as badly. Lets go back to the story of the Amazon guy – had you slept well the night before, gone for a jog in the morning, and had a better day at the office, you might deel with the situation better.

3 Guaranteed Ways to Tame Stress:

High quality Zs – check your mattress. Part of the reason you are not getting high quality sleep is because you are sleeping on a shit mattress.
Exercise – fills your body with endorphins and gives you a natural high.
Get social – isolation causes you to retreat into your head and fixate on all that is wrong with you. Getting out with positive people helps to relax and de-stress.

G) SPEAK TO SOMEONE

If you had told me this five years ago, I would have told you to fuck off! The goal of The Tribe is to build a group of like-minded men to whom you can talk. Men are taught to bottle up their emotions and sometimes, this is the right thing to do. But sometimes, you need to get things off your chest,

DO NOT SPEAK TO YOUR PARTNER – ESPECIALLY IF YOUR PARTNER IS A WOMEN. WOMEN DO NOT WANT YOU TO GET ALL EMOTIONAL.

2) Masters of Non-Entitlement

Here is a quick test for you. If you say “I DESERVE……” a lot, you have locked into a mindset that is going to seriously fuck up your life and the life of people around you.

If you say things like, I deserve success, I deserve to be rich, I deserve to drive a fancy car, I deserve an attractive partner, I deserve that promotion, then we have a problem on our hands – its time to call the priest, because the self entitlement demons need to be exorcised!

The difference between Minions and Masters is that Minions think they deserve things.

MASTERS KNOW THEY DESERVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Everything they have is thanks to hard work and determination. Success does not come easily,

HAVE YOU NOTICED HOW EVERYONE IS GETTING PARTICIPATION CERTIFICATES?

At sporting events, it doesn’t matter if you win or come stone last – EVERYONE IS A WINNER. This is toxic feminism – the desire to kill the competitive spirit that lives inside men. If you finished last in the race, you must know that you suck and you need to train harder. If everyone is a winner, you are breeding a generation of self entitled, mediocre pussies.

How do you know if you are self-entitled?

Self entitled assholes love to throw little tantrums. A self entitled person thinks he is better than everyone else and says things like: ‘I can’t believe I have to work with such morons’. “I have to do all the work because everyone else is useless”.

There is nothing worse than a grown man acting like a spoiled kid. Self-entitled people are easily discouraged and disillusioned. They may start a new job, and unless they feel appreciated and fulfilled within a few months, they will probably quit and look for something else.

3) Masters of Action

Minions talk about luck, or fate or destiny. Every day, they check out their horoscopes to see what is going to happen to them. They are passengers in their own lives.

MASTERS ARE IN THE DRIVERS SEAT.

They take ownership of both their successes and their failures. They do not blame other people – they never play the victim card. They accept that they are master of their souls, captain of their fate. Nelson Mandela, during his freedom struggle, came to the realization that the strategy of non-violence was not working, so he started to blow shit up in the hope of sending a message to the National Party government. He took responsibility for his actions. They were illegal but they were committed against an illegitimate regime. Mandela could easily have played the victim card and said:

THE GOVERNMENT MADE ME DO IT.

Instead he faced the music like a high-value man. He spent almost 30 years on a cold, wet and miserable rock a couple of miles away from Cape Town. Look up high-value man in the dictionary and you will find a photo of this great South African.

Minions are passive wimps.

THE VICTIM MENTALITY IS A WEAK AND NON-MASCULINE MENTALITY

High-value men go out in the world and get shit done. They wake up at 5am and hit the gym. They hit the produce aisle at the supermarket for fruit and vegetables instead of rolling up to the Macdonalds drive thru. They quit their bullshit jobs and pursue careers they are passionate about.

MASTERS HAVE THEIR HANDS ON THE WHEEL AND THEIR FOOT ON THE GAS.

They don’t sit at home waiting for the phone to ring, or for the girl to send them a text message. When there is an emergency, they are the first ones to rush in and help.

4) Masters of Pain

When it is windy and rainy outside, minions stay home and watch porn. Masters grab their running shoes, their bikes, or their surfboards and throw themselves into the chaos. The waves will thrash them around, but they won’t kill him.

The master knows that WHATEVER DOES NOT KILL HIM WILL MAKE HIM STRONGER.

PAIN IS REAL – IT FORCES YOU INTO THE PRESENT – IT MAKES YOU FEEL ALIVE.

It is not pleasant, but shit, you feel good when it stops because it teaches you what your body is capable of.

LIFE IS FUCKING HARD – IT IS FULL OF SUFFERING.

Sex will disappoint you, money will not protect you from emotional pain and your youth will disappear.

THE WINNERS IN THIS WORLD ARE NOT THE FASTEST, SMARTEST, OR THE BEST LOOKING MEN – IT IS THE MAN THAT ENDURES THE MOST SUFFERING.

5) Masters of Time

Minions have plenty of time - all they have is time.

MASTERS ARE IN A RUSH

THEY MAKE TO DO LISTS, they set goals (daily, weekly, monthly, etc).

Masters understand that humans are mobile creatures - they always need to be in motion.

THEY KNOW WHERE THEY WANT TO BE IN ONE DAY, SIX MONTH, TEN YEARS.

High-value men don’t waste time watching botox addicted bimbos lip syncing to Despacito on TikTok. I am amazed by much time men spend on these members only online live rooms, where they watch girls sleep, get dressed and all that shit, and then send donations, declaring undying love for these chicks. And these girls are pulling in a couple of hundred grand a month for doing jack shit.

THIS SHOWS HOW DIRE THE MALE CONDITION IS IN THE 21ST CENTURY.

6) Masters of Ego

Minions think they know everything. They draw attention to themselves by running loud exhausts, lowered suspension and low profile tires on their shitty hatch backs. Master are humble – they know they are a work in progress and do not know everything. They are constantly learning and searching. They understand their limitations and that makes them humble.

HUMILITY IS NOT THE SAME AS TIMIDITY.

High-value men are humble because they know they don’t know everything and are always learning. This understanding that they have limitations, makes them humble, not timid.

High-value men know that humility is a strength and not a weakness, because it is an asset for self-improvement. They know their life is a work in progress and are striving towards excellence.

Humble men are coachable and allow criticism to fuel development rather than resentment. They apologize after making a mistake. They help others who are below them in skill to improve rather than looking down on them.

High-value men are confident but not arrogant. So, what is the difference because sometimes these two traits can be confused? Confidence is the absolute knowledge in your own real abilities. Arrogance is the belief that you are better than someone else based on an exaggerated sense of your own abilities.

Arrogant people brag about their achievements, skills and abilities, and often ignore those around them. In meetings, for example, arrogant people generally seek the spotlight. Consciously or unconsciously, they make others feel less important. Conversely, high value men shine a light on their colleagues' achievements in meetings. They ask for input, encourage teamwork, and generously praise their co-workers.

7) Masters of Education

Minions thinks that after school and university they are educated. Masters KNOW THAT EDUCATION IS A CONTINUAL PROCESS OF LIFE.

They know that education is also:

a) LISTENING

Minions have their heads stuck up their ass and don’t believe they have anything more to learn.

MASTERS LISTEN TO EVERYONE

because they know they can learn from ANYONE. Fuck, what do you have to lose. I talk to all the Uber drivers. In some countries, the economy is so stuck in the doldrums, that you often stumble across a driver who is an architect, an engineer or even a doctor. These guys have hundreds of strangers passing through their two back doors every week. I came across a Venezuelan in Panama – the guy was driver Uber and trading Forex at the same time – and he was making money!

b) THINKING CRITICALLY

Minions are easily lead astray. They easily get sucked into Nigerian money scams, and typically join cults where they become sex slaves to the messianic leader. Masters can take a body of facts and make a critical assessment of their veracity. The rise of the internet has been the biggest challenge for minions because it does not differentiate between fiction and non fiction. It is not like the library where it is easy to differentiate. Masters can tell the difference between fact and bullshit.

c) ASKING INTERESTING QUESTIONS

Minions do not know what they don’t know, so they haven’t got a clue about what questions to ask. Masters are educated in what they do not know. They therefore know exactly what to ask in order to fill that knowledge gap.

d) CURIOSITY

Albert Einstein said he had no special skill – he was just passionately curious. A curious mind is an active mind. Your brain is a muscle – it needs to be exercised. It is like your bicep – if left inactive for long period of times, it will start to shrink.

High Vlue Tribe is about being active – in mind and body. Going out and doing interesting and challenging shit, and using your brain to find elegant solutions to challenging problems. If you are not curious, you brain is going to atrophy into a massive lump of shit.

e) WRITING

The power to write is absolutely deadly. THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD. You do not want to get into an argument with someone that can write well – THEY WILL RIP YOU TO SHREDS.

f) READING

Hop onto YouTube and run through a few videos on highly successful people. You will find that the common denominator with all of them is that they are voracious readers. By reading, you get to experience and learn shit in a couple of days or weeks (depending on how fast you read), something that someone took years and years to master.

I love to read biographies about great men that did great stuff in their lives. Put their lives onto your shelf and dive into their worlds – and tap into their experiences.

SEE THEM AS YOUR PEERS, YOUR COLLEAGUES, YOUR MENTORS.

These are great people that you can consult at any time of the day or night.

THAT IS BLOODY AMAZING – IN DON’T CARE WHERE YOU ARE FROM.

To get the ball rolling, go out and read Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom. You will be able to get into the mind and experience the life lessons of one of the greatest HIGH-VALUE MEN ever to have walked the planet.

8) Masters of Courage

Minions are cowards – they run away from fights, they go with the flow. If they are sitting at a dinner party, and a racist joke is made, they laugh along with the rest of the idiots. Masters have the courage to stand up for injustice, even if that means losing “friends” in the process.

Courage is not fearlessness – it is taking action despite the fear you feel.

Fear is often good because it keeps you alive. Your brain is hardwired for self-preservation. Fear of crossing a busy highway is a good thing.

But sometimes fear makes you small, timid and powerless. For example, fear of rejection may keep you single when you want to be in a relationship. By confronting your fears, you become brave. Courage means moving forward in the face of fear and taking chances.

RISK IS NOT YOUR ENEMY

Taking risk is not the same as being reckless. Being courageous is about thinking things through, examining the risks and rewards, and acting in spite of the fear.

Courage boosts your self confidence and allows you to believe in your abilities, and pursue your goals.

Fear keeps you in your comfort zone, playing video games and watching porn.

Courage is a muscle that needs to be exercised. Every day you must find ways to flex your courage muscles.

Here are a few steps to strengthen your courage:

Step 1: Verbalize Your Fears
Putting your feelings into words does not make you a pussy. It takes courage to acknowledge where you are vulnerable. Write them down, or record a voice note on your phone. Tell them to a friend (not to your girlfriend or boyfriend).

Step 2: Identify Your Strengths

At school, you were taught to focus on your weaknesses. That is horrible advice. Focusing on your weaknesses leads you to believe you are shit and useless. Focusing on your strengths makes you feel like a rockstar.

Step 3: Consider All Alternatives
When faced with a tough decision, we tend to focus on the worst thing that could happen. For example, you friends talk you into bungee jumping off the Bloukrans Bridge in South Africa. Your first thought is of the cord snapping being splattered over the river bed. Instead of just focusing on that, also consider the orgasmic exhilaration of flying off a 200m bridge and soaring like an eagle for a few seconds!

Step 4: Do One Thing that Terrifies You Every Day

Go and speak to that pretty girl or attractive boy in the supermarket, agree to that public speaking engagement, go to a restaurant alone, say “No” to someone to whom you always say “Yes”. Take yourself out of your comfort zone and watch yourself grow.

In other words, practice being courageous by overcoming little fears like meeting new people or eating alone in a restaurant before you tackle something like taking the lead on a project or heading up your community's toy drive. By starting small, you can get used to being courageous without a lot of risks at first. Eventually, you will get to the point where you can take bigger risks.

9) Masters of Confidence

Men are mobile creatures. We feel most confident and fulfilled if we are moving forward and making progress. How do you feel when you are stuck in a traffic jam? I lived in Mexico City where you can sit for 30 minutes without moving. You feel impotent, frustrated and depressed. Confidence comes through moving forward and growing. Here are five ways to be more confident.

1) Be Kind to Yourself

When you read reviews, you always focus on that one negative comment. The human brain is hardwired to put more importance on the negative than the positive. That is why there is more bad news out there and why we complain more than we praise. The same is true about how we see ourselves. Don't let that negative voice in your brain put you down. Keep a journal -keep a note of your personal strengths and daily victories (no matter how small).

3) Set Small Attainable Goals

The reason why new years resolutions never last longer than a week is because they are big and unattainable. For example, go to the gym every day for the next year. When you stop after a week, you feel like a loser. Set small daily or weekly goals (like spend 5 minutes meditating each day, or drink more water, or eat less sugar). These small changes will compound over time and make you feel more successful and self controlled.

3) Be Kind to a Stranger

Help someone else. Studies have shown that doing things for other people makes you happy. It can be as simple as opening the door for an old lady or as involved as volunteering at a local charity. This act forces you to focus less on your own limitations and anxieties, and more on the needs of others. Making a positive impact on the life of someone else is extremely self empowering.

4) Accept your Weaknesses and Make them Small

If you are 5 feet 2 inches, it is unlikely you will ever be a great basketball player. So what? People may tease you and make fun of you. If you have accepted your natural limitations, you have disarmed your bullies. School teaches you to work on your weaknesses. A better approach is to maximize your strengths and accept you weaknesses. Life is hard enough as it is. This will make life a little easier. Define yourself by your strengths - not your weaknesses.

5) Take care of Yourself Physically

Get regular exercise, eat healthy foods, get a haircut every 3 weeks, wash your face, dress well. All these external physical things will automatically make you feel more confident.

10) Masters of Gratitude

Humans have a negativity bias. Our brains are hardwired to fixate on the negative – bad news triggers a reaction that causes us to remember more bad stuff than good. A nutcase walks into a school library, opens fire, kills 20 kids and the librarian, and then turns the gun on himself. We want to know more. This is the reason we love to watch movies about serial killers, mob violence, drug traffickers.

The online media knows this. Their objective is to increase traffic through their sites and thereby increase the advertising dollars spent. I am not going to explain the reason for this bias. What you need to know is that this creates disequilibrium in your life. It makes you more inclined to complain and it kills any sense of gratitude.

High-value men are masters of gratitude. They are grateful on a macro and micro level. Let’s start on a macro level. You could argue that there has never been a better time to be alive. Agreed, the last 20 years have been a little rough. We had the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the 2008 financial meltdown, the Iraq/Afghanistan wars, and we are now living through a global pandemic. But look at the positive. Between 2000 and 2015 the number of people living in poverty has halved. We have access to the best healthcare ever. We are better off than the richest man in the world in the 1920s. John D Rockefeller was the richest man in the world, but for the first 28 years of the 20th century, he did not have access to antibiotics. We live in an age of democratization of knowledge and education. The 1980s and 1990s recorded the highest rates of economic growth ever in history. There is an abundance of food, it has been 75 years since the last world war, democracy is by far the most dominant political system and commodity prices have fallen. There is widespread availability of high-speed internet, the internet itself has made the global market open to everyone. Ethnic minorities, women and gay people have never lived in a more tolerant and acceptant society. Things are pretty fucking good!

On a micro level, here are five ways that gratitude can change your life.

1) It Shifts Your Focus

A happy life is about perspective and context. If you think your life is shit, go and spend some time in an old age home. Find an old man whose kids have not visited him in 5 years, who is living off a dialysis machine, and whose highlight of the day is being wheeled outside to the rose garden for 15 minutes. That will quickly put your shit and miserable life into context.

2) It Attracts People

How often have you said – skrew that woman – she is such an ungrateful cow and she can fuck off out of my life. The corollary is also true. If you ooze positivity and gratitude, you are like a shining light in a dark world full of ingratitude. People will want to spend time with you - for business and pleasure.

3) It Makes Your Happier

This is so fucking obvious, I am not going to mess it up by trying to explain why – IT JUST DOES.

4) It Makes You Healthier

Studies show gratitude can: d

decrease pain
reduce bad health symptoms
increase time spent exercising
increase sleep time
increase sleep quality
lower blood pressure
increase energy

There is even reason to believe gratitude can extend your lifespan by a few months or even years. What do you have to lose, wake up every morning and write down five things you are grateful for, and see how it affects your health.

5) It Murders Envy

I challenge you to be grateful and envious at the same time – it is impossible. It is like going to Disney World and being miserable. Envy is a very powerful negative emotion. Envious people are miserable shits. They tend to feel hostile, resentful, angry, and irritable. Envy is also related to depression, anxiety, the development of prejudice, and personal unhappiness. Envy is a killer, but so is gratitude. The difference is that gratitude drives a stake in the heart of envy, and then rips out its guts.