When I was younger I always though power meant having control over others.

To control their behavior, decisions, thoughts, wants, needs and time.

The older I got the more I understood power is the complete opposite.

Power is the lack of control others have over your behavior, decisions, thoughts, wants, needs and time.

Power is the control over one’s emotions not to lash out or the need to defend your position, explain or excuse one’s self or rationalize your behavior towards others. 

Power is doing.

Power doesn’t need to be stated as a possession. It shows itself when needed.

Guys love the Tywin Lannister quote “Any man who says I am the king is no true king” which was used to put a child in his place. Yet they use it to show they’re king because Th3y d0n’t cAll th3ms3lv3s K!ng. Completely missing the point of what the character was trying to say in that moment.

Power does not need to speak.

That is power.

Power just is.

And as stated above power is how much control one has over themselves.

Can you make peace with the past?

Can you accept what you lost will never come back?

And can you accept that who you once were is no longer who you are?

In bodybuilding and in fitness as a whole there is a phenomenon that’s called “fat kid syndrome” and it describes a person who used to be the fat kid and experienced the hardship that comes with it. Be it ridicule, rejection, shaming and outright bullying, but now has gone through the journey of losing all the weight and sculpted themselves into a peak example of human aesthetics. 

Yet they cannot lose the image of that chubby little fat kid who nobody wanted to play with or be around other than to ridicule them.

They still have no power of themselves.

And it reminds me of people who win the lottery.

Many of you might know the statistics that a majority (I can’t remember the percentage) of lottery winners are broke within 5 years.

Objectively they might be rich, but mentally they are still poor.

An urge to spend, because who knows when the money will be gone? Ironically that way of thinking being the reason why it will be gone.

But with it comes certain behavior as well.

Note I have never been “poor”. I grew up in a financial middle class home where I had every toy that I ever wanted. Which developed into problems on their own which I maybe go into later.

I do however know a couple of previous fat and or poor kids who, even though out lift and out finance me, still haven’t caught up mentally.

In it based on that experience which I know write this piece. 

With certain circumstances come certain behaviors.

When you’ve never been anyone, you want to be someone. But how can you be someone when no-one acknowledges you?

For that there’s validation.

In my humble opinion a need for validation is a sign of powerlessness.

A NEED for everyone to know you have money, have sex, have stuff and everything else they’ve achieved.

But what is all of that worth if you can’t enjoy it for yourself?

This need for validation can take form of destructive habits of calling people out and comparing yourself to them in a way that makes you look infinitely better.

Be like me it worked for me.

But if you’re better, why feel the need to call it out?

Stir Up Water To Catch Fish is one of those laws of power which is meant as a shield instead of a sword and not as a tool to apply. Some will rattle your cage just to see how you react and with your reaction enlarge their point.

Power isn’t winning over other. Power is not needing to win over others, because you’ve already won for yourself.

This is why they used to say: “We can’t tell you what to think, only how to” in MRP (Married Red Pill).

All of this Red Pill, learning game, getting attractive and getting your shit in order is about YOU.

Rian Stone always asks: How much money is enough?

And barely anyone can give an answer.

Can I give an answer?

I can give a rough estimate and if I were a millionaire you’d barely see me podcast solo again.

You most certainly would never know if I had it.

This is why Delicious Tacos comes across as powerful to me.

The man has his books, his own little farm, a passive income and is jacked and what does he do?

Plays an incel on Twitter while guru’s make fun of him by calling him poor and falling for his play.

Meanwhile he enjoys the peace and the beauty of nature, company of his cat, bird watching and the occasional big titted Asian who also agrees to promote his books with scantily clad photo’s of herself.

Chest RuleZeroDad Rockwell comes across as powerful to me.

He’s been a mod on Married Red Pill for years where he archived his field reports on dragging himself through hell to now being a highly successful lawyer while leading his family without even one photo of his car or need to look for validation. Yet you will be dragged to the carpet when you try to fuck with him. His work speaks for him, not his possessions.

Rob comes across as powerful to me.

He’s 5,4 ft, bald, bearded, tatted up having 3 girls in rotation working as a truck driver not having any debt as of recently. 

He doesn’t want for anything but his Bud Light, cigars, hanging out with friends and his chicks.

He is content.

He is the alpha buddha, although a very grouchy one every now and then. 

This is not to fluff my friend, though a bit, but it to get across a point.

They HAVE what THEY want.

They answered uncle Iroh’s question to Zuko:

“Is it your own destiny or a destiny someone else has tried to force on you?”

Do you want 6-figs brah or did you read that on twitter?

Do you want to be ripped and have the abs or did you see a photo of a guy with models and did it made you think you need to look like that?

Do you want the bad bitches or are those the girls you see on insta and would you be happy just to have someone be into you?

Most of you will fail and the red pill isn’t for you.

Red pill Trademark is, but not the red pill.

You’re the grand example of men being raised as defective girls as why marketing works so well.

A quick feel good hit of dopamine before you go back to your miserable life wishing and wanting for what some Guru can give you.

Well, as you might have seen or heard I got banned from Twitter. It’s a permanent ban, so I get can’t back on it that easily.

Even though the Conservative route of saying Twitter is “silencing voices who don’t align with their ideology” would be an easy one to take and maybe give me some clout, it’s as far away from the truth as possible.

I knew damn well what I was doing and had been poking the bear for a couple of weeks now, because I got bored of the platform. Even though I had put in a lot of effort for the 5.7k followers, after I got them I got bored with it.

And as my friend Watson once stated about me:

“When everything is going well with you, you get bored. And when you get bored you start looking for something that can mess it up because you enjoy the chaos and anxiety it brings.”

I wouldn’t say I “enjoy” it, but he was right about me messing up a good thing.

I’ve gone on record before with Rob saying most of my LTR’s were ended by her after a couple of months of me getting bored and changing my behavior.

I knew it was unattractive, I knew it would drive her away and I knew damn well I would end up single.

But I did it anyway.

*Note: In some cases I did get hit out of nowhere with her cheating, but more often than not I got annoyed with having my freedom taken away and being bored with the “happy life”.

And I couldn’t tell you why.

Maybe it’s some deep internal believe system that I don’t deserve it. Maybe I want to fail just to prove I can’t do it anyway. Or maybe I have a self destructed personality.

I’ve had the tendency to grab to substances knowing it wouldn’t end well in my younger years. The legal drinking age in The Netherlands used to be 16 for soft liquor, but enough soft liquor will still hit hard and when I turned 18 and hard liquor became available, this didn’t suddenly stop being something I’d grab to. *

*I have never gone to AA not did I need to. I have had my own personal demons which were founded in a childhood trauma that has been dealt with. My behavior, though toxic, wasn’t near to the level of bad as alcoholism is and my heart goes out to everyone who has ever gone through it. I have not experienced this. 

I’ve also been honest about my previous nicotine addiction. I knew full well it was bad for me, but I did it anyway.

I guess I have an addictive personality as some would call it. 

Some people will brush these off and say: “It’s just occasional alcohol and nicotine. There are thousands of people who do hard drugs every day which is way worse!”

As a man who grew up in a house with an alcoholic I will tell you to go fuck yourself.

Substance abuse is substance abuse. Focussing on the word “abuse” here.

Especially nicotine has a form of nihilism to it.

People know it’s bad for, people know it’s expensive and people know it’s probably cause cancer.

Yet do they it anyway.

Yet I did it anyway.

Every cigarette is another step closer to your heart failing, lungs stopping and or other bodily malfunctions.

Yet, the taste of death never tasted so sweet.

“So what if it happens? At least I got to enjoy it!”

And there’s the hook.

Do they really enjoy it or did they stop caring all together?

Little habits can tell you a lot about someone now only views the world but also themselves.

Whether they want to feel alive, are just bored or completely apathetic and stopped feeling anything or want to feel everything. 

With all of that also comes a devil may care attitude behaving in ways that at least cause something.

Something that changes the daily grind of life.

A little excitement. 

Which is something I consciously or subconsciously have done for as long as I can remember.

“A will get me into trouble, so let’s push A as far as possible and see what we can get away with.”

I did this in middle school, high school, college and heck even today.

Consequences don’t feel real until they’re actually happening and the appetite for destruction needs to be satisfied.

Wether it be big or small, consequential or negligible something needs to make you feel.

As long as you feel something.

“I’m not going there to die. I’m going there to see if I’m really alive” -Spike Spiegel 

Names have been altered for privacy reasons.

Rob once asked me why I have the notch count I have and in my direct way of thinking I said because I never gave up.

He stopped me for a second, as the older brother he is, and said:

“It’s because of the memories.”

I didn’t know what he meant until he explained.

“Jack, you went out there. You met new people and you faced rejection because you don’t want to lay on your deathbed and think: “if only”. You want to lie there and think back on what you did.

It hit me and I finally realized how right he was.

Even though I wouldn’t spend time with most of my exes, plates and notches wether by their choice or mine, I do like looking back every now and then and smile. Even if it’s just a little.

The places we went to. The awkwardness we both experiences. The excitement of that attraction building up to a point where we nearly devoured each other.

None of it would have happened if I didn’t went for it and wanted something to look back on when I finally bite the dust. Whenever that may be. 

In times of dry spells I might start overthinking things and tell myself I will never get laid again, am not tall, jacked, rich, good looking enough, but then I have my memories.

The stories of the times a girl would text me if I was home during her lunch break.

A girl standing outside of my window at 3 A.M. in the morning checking if I was up (I was a “nightowl” as a teenager).

The matches I had at 11 P.M. at night telling me they’d “love a fitness class from me” (I had my profession in my bio). 

The dates I had where I walked in and could see everything but her nipples because of the low cut top she was wearing.

Adler who threw me into the red pill direction, L who let me swallow the pill, Carmen who was my first Tinder lay, Caroline the former main plate who would crawl through glass to keep me happy, build ships with me and arrange threesomes. Or the ginger I fishhooked.

All of these and more are an experience and reminder that I did it at least once and can probably do it again.

But even if I am never able to pull again (which at 31 is very unlikely but for sake of argument) I have the memories and at least went out there and went for it.

The average guy is either a virgin, doesn’t know what he’s doing, settled for less or is stuck in a sexless marriage.

They will die wished they had done.

I die knowing I have.

Quick thanks to Rob for letting me guest post on his blog.