The Lion Mentality is one of aggression and focus.
“And the king gave the command, and they brought those men who had accused Daniel, and they cast them into the den of lions—them, their children, and their wives; and the lions overpowered them, and broke all their bones in pieces before they ever came to the bottom of the den.”
When children are learning about the story of Daniel in the Old Testament, they always learn two basic lessons.
Daniel prayed three times per day (Daniel 6:10) and did so even though he knew there would be consequences for praying to or worshiping anyone but King Darius (6:7-8).
Daniel was tossed in the den of lions but God closed the mouths of the lions and Daniel lived (6:21-22).
What children don’t learn or perhaps gloss over is a very important lesson that can be taken from the end of the chapter. And it is not merely a lesson, but a principle or an attitude that can be learned even from the animal kingdom through the Biblical lens. The principle comes from the selected verse of the day: the enemies of Daniel who plotted against him were taken and thrown in the lion’s den along with all of their family members. And the lions shattered their bones before they ever reached the bottom of the den – that is the epic ending of Daniel’s foes.
The aggression of the lions is what Men should seek to embody in their own lives.
Masculine Men possess a spirit that assaults all obstacles and crushes all opposing forces “before they can even reach the bottom of the den”. This philosophy is the opposite of procrastination. The Lion mindset is incredibly aggressive and is founded on the fast paced offensive maneuvering that all men should strive to employ in their lives.
King Darius likely had his lions starved or at the least fed them only intermittently, therefore anything that resembled food would be attacked and destroyed in an instant if it entered the den. So then men must also be hungry for personal improvement and success in their own life. Men must aggressively attack their own weaknesses and “shatter their bones”.
Mantra
I have the Lion Mindset and attack all obstacles with ferocity.
Application
These lions represent the spirit of the aggressive mentality.
The Lion Mentality is one that attacks problems before they are even problems, while they are still in the incubation stage and forces solutions onto them.
The mindset also seeks out tasks and completes them in advance, far before any deadlines need to be met.
You must be this way in your own life. When you know something must be done, you instantly attack it with violent aggression and destroy the task.
If you are in school or college, you must view yourself as a lion just waiting for a task to be tossed at you. The second you know about an assignment, you must attack it and work on it until it is finished. If you have a week to finish an assignment, finish it today. If you have a month to finish an assignment, finish it in five days maximum. You will feel a sense of pride and satisfaction in yourself that is only possible through intense, focused work.
If you are accustomed to taking a full day to produce one widget, take on the aggressive mindset and produce two widgets. Then make three and four widgets until you are the most productive person in your department. Then start your own business with your newfound aggression and work ethic and stop renting your time to the highest bidder.
You must also apply the same principles to your relationships with friends and significant others or marriage. If a problem comes up in the relationship, hit it early and quickly. Do not allow problems to fester and grow because of procrastination.
The Lion mentality can destroy Parkinson’s Law – which states, “work expands to fill the time given to complete it”.
Which simply means that if a normal man is given a week to finish a task, it will take the entire week even though it likely could have been completed in a few hours had he concentrated on it. Parkinson’s law outlines procrastination. But by applying the Lion Mindset you can short-circuit that law and be more productive than you have in the past.
“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
The meaning of motivation is literally “ a motive to act”, but men have turned it into something completely different. To the world, motivation is when you feel like taking an action. All the stars align, you are pumped and excited to go to work or to go train and you go out to pound the stone of discipline while spurred on by your warm and fuzzy feelings.
We as men know these occasions of motivation are rare and that they cannot be relied upon if our goal is to be successful.
You are only occasionally going to feel like keeping to all your disciplines. Only rarely will you desire to make those small sacrifices of discipline. The weak are the ones who wait for the stars to align before they take action. Men take the initiative and do the work when it is still inconvenient to do so. Men of character and strength improve themselves every day, not just on the days that it “feels right” to work. No Man judges whether or not he should take an action based on how he is feeling emotionally at the time.
Motivation is fickle, it is here one second and gone the next. Motivation should never be relied upon as your reason to act just as the emotional feeling of love should never be relied upon for any rational decision making. Both motivation and “love” can be here one second, and gone the next – but discipline always remains.
However, all that being said, we should still seek out motivation in the form of role models or stories that inspire us.
We should ingest a positive visual diet filled with motivation. In doing this we build a stockpile of motivation in our minds for whenever we need a boost.
Stories of men overcoming the odds and staring down their own personal adversity no matter how great or small it seemed to the world.
Examples of men who have achieved greatness in their chosen field serve as motivation to do well and they are out reminders for what is possible if we are willing to work.
When our minds and bodies are failing, we turn our minds to our role models, to the men who inspired us to take action in the first place, and we become energized to do even more work, to go even farther in our disciplines, to behave with increased masculinity and be more focused and determined in all that we do. We should fill our minds with men we admire and whom we want to be like. We must embed their words and philosophies in our minds and work to embody the spirit of the masculine Christian man.
The internet has placed dozens of excellent mentors at our fingertips. We no longer have an excuse not to improve in any facet of life. There is no justification for not knowing how to do something. There is no reason that we should not have any men to look up to.
Mantra
I am my own motivation.
Application I
Replace motivation with discipline. This can be done by forcing yourself to take action when you are not motivated. There is no simpler or easier way to become disciplined. You do not need to be the man who requires motivation to take action, you want to be the man who completes all of his work regardless of his personal feelings. Cast aside emotional motivation and take up the Blade of Discipline. Take the actions you do not want to take, that are uncomfortable, even painful but that bring the most profit.
Application II
Acquire mentors who inspire you, whether you know them personally or not does not matter. Here are some suggestions for men you can find online or in books:
Jocko Willink (Leadership/Discipline/Masculinity)
Jordan Peterson (Thinker/Lecturer/Writer)
Robert Greene (Thinker/Writer)
Elon Musk (Work Ethic)
I am not vouching for the morality of these men, some of them use profanity quite often, but they each embody a version of a masculine spirit and are great at what they have chosen to do in life. You do not have to copy their morality, only their skill and masculine characteristics.
You might look at this list of suggestions and tell me “There are not that many (if any) Christian men on this list!”.
That is correct, and it is because Christian men have this bad habit of being mediocre and forgotten. Christian men tend to be average and fail to achieve great things in life. Show young men a Man like Job or Abraham who gathered wealth and character and was still righteous and you will find another role model for them. But most Christian men are content to justify their failure by suggesting they are more spiritual for not focusing on worldly possessions.
Most Christian men do not have a psychotic work ethic.
The majority of Christian men do not gather great wealth.
Most Christian men are “theoretical success” rather than “experimental successes” (They say things like, “If I were X person, I would do X, Y and Z”, when in reality they would do none of those things because they have no idea how to manage anything which is why they are failures).
Your job is to break this mold of mediocrity and be a Christian Man who is also a respected Man of valor. We have no right to not use our time wisely and be great at our selected skills. When you pick a mentor for yourself, you must listen to him every day. Listen to his podcasts or speeches and lectures and actually try to apply some of the principles you hear. Try to embody a great and more focused mentality by being inspired by these men. Look at how other men act, and then act like them.
Talent is the ability that is given to you naturally , skill is what you earn through hours upon hours dedicated to the development and actualization of your natural ability. Talent is a foundation, skill is what you build upon that foundation.
“Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men”
It is possible to become highly skilled at almost anything you want, but most men do not take advantage of this fact.
Most average men are skilled in watching football for long periods of time. Other men are skilled at chronically criticizing their wives (which for most men is a projecting of a lack of self-esteem and self-respect). Most men are skilled at nothing because they do not take the time to venture outside of the comfort zone and into the land of focused effort, so they remain mediocre for their entire lives. They then wonder why life didn’t turn out the way they wanted – why they are not rich, famous or successful. It is because they did not put any effort into any endeavor in life.
We as men can build skills that are marketable and then accumulate an abundance of wealth, but most men do not do this. They do not take the time to focus their mind or work hard to develop those marketable skills.
Boys go to college and major in an easy subject rather than a profitable one.
They waste their four years of “education” in social clubs, drinking parties and other idle revelries that do not profit (Proverbs 14:23). They graduate from college and reality hits them: they have not developed a single marketable skill in their four years of college. Everything they know could have been learned through self-education on the internet. The fact that MIT posts hundreds of lectures for free online is evidence of this.
These boys are doomed to a job they will hate for the rest of their life unless they acquire profitable skills at some point. Reality sets in and the joy of life leaves them, or they ignore this emptiness by watching football and blaming circumstances and chance for how their life turned out.
If you want to avoid this meaningless life, build skills now, and build skills that make money in the modern marketplace.
No one is going to pay you to make origami or send text messages. Playing beer pong, being able to regurgitate meaningless information on a scantron and brag about your liberal arts degree will not earn you a single red cent.
If you are in college, you have the opportunity of a lifetime to build skills – and not just any skills, but skills that can earn money. And not just skills that earn money, but ones that can allow you to set up your life where you are bringing in money while you are sleeping or away from work. This should be the goal of a man: to never again have to trade your time for cash.
In college, you have more free time than ever in your life unless you lie to yourself and use the popular phrase of the weak: “I don’t have time”.
Learn to write, code, copy write, cook, build or sell items. Do not waste your college years or young adult years indulging in far too much social interaction than is necessary. Build a skill and learn how to sell it.
You do not have to build skills, you can always party it up now and blame everything but yourself for why you are a failure and nothing more than a mindless drone later in life. Marketable skill is the primary separator between the guy flipping burgers from the guy building mansions or packing out stadiums with his music. You have the power within you to be one or the other if you are willing to develop some work ethic and exchange your time for skill, rather than exchange your time for pleasure. Make the masculine choice to start building skills today.
Mantra
To possess Skill is to possess Worth
Application
Acquire some decent habits. You need to be training yourself on some kind of skill every day.
Stop heating garbage meals in the microwave and learn how to cook, people will pay for that skill.
Learn how to build furniture.
Learn languages.
Go learn to build electronics or to code computer programs.
Any skill you work to develop is better than whatever nonsense you are currently wasting your time on.
You do not need to revolutionize your life right now, you just need to build and work on marketable skills every single day. You must be a good steward of your time by using it to develop skills.
Get a journal where you will write down the skills you will create. This can be combined with your habit journal, and together they will give you written, visual feedback on how consistent you are with keeping to your skill building every day.
All you have to do is practice a skill every day, and accumulate enough days of practice to make you a professional at what you do. Once you are a professional, sell your ability to the highest bidder. You have no choice but to be successful, and no excuse for being a failure.
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
Every man approaches death with every day that he lives. We have been physically dying from the start of life. At some point we truly realize the reality of our approaching death and we are forced to come to grips with it. Whether or not we actually do get a grip on the truth of it is up to us.
Most people never get a grip, so they ignore death, treating it as something afar off and never preparing for the day when they must die. Every day, we as men have to prepare for the reality of our death. There is nothing we can do to avoid this engagement. We have a few years to gain mastery over our mind, to command our thoughts towards life and death and then to live a noble life. It is difficult to act rightly if we are constantly overwhelmed by fear of death.
Old people say that young people do not consider death.
I consider mine every day, multiple times per day, and you should as well. You must consider your death every day without fail and try to understand how limited your time is. This will keep you focused because you know there is only so much life to live, after which you must give an account of how you used your time. In reality the old are the ones who do not consider death and spend much of their remaining life fighting to delay the inevitable end. Also, many people live as if they were already dead. Their lives are in a state of death. The robotic lifestyle of most religious individuals is a representation of this fact.
We decay as we live by the process of aging, and we spend a fortune trying to delay this aging. Every kind of skin product and every “special” diet are tools people try to use to preserve their youth. No man accepts how he ages, he always wishes to stop it or slow it down. Every attempt to slow aging is just action taken because of the fear of death. We fear death because we do not know what lies beyond it.
As Christians we hope there is an afterlife, but do not be confused, no one has died and then come back to tell us what is really on the other side.
This is why it still requires an element of faith to be a Christian and have a hope for the promise of life beyond death. Christians do not want to hear this, they think you can know for sure what lies beyond the doors of death. If that is true and you can know what happens after death, why are we still afraid of dying?
We want to think that we have been told exactly what will happen upon death, but really, we still do not know, and this is why we are afraid. This explains why we have “hope” regarding the afterlife and not “knowledge”. If we knew what was coming, there would be no need for faith.
We believe that the Word of God has been revealed to us and in it are descriptions of a paradisiacal afterlife. This not only gives us hope beyond this present life, but lessens the fear of death for some men.
Death can spring out of any place at any time and snatch us from this life.
Often we make the mistake of assuming we have time on our side. We never think that we will be a casualty in a car accident, or that we will die in some ridiculous event that had a 0.1% chance of happening. We always think we will live to a ripe old age and pass away in our sleep. This is not the case, our time could be over today. This could be your very last day on the earth. As you put down this book and get ready to head to work, you could be T-boned by a semi that ran a red light and be killed instantly.
That is a dark idea to meditate on, but it is a possibility. A car wreck that kills you is a small possibility, but still something that happens to random individuals every day. They only had a “small possibility” of being killed in a wreck too. And how many of them planned on and prepared for their death that day?
We must also meditate on the fact that our loved ones will die, this is an even darker thought.
The thought of the death of our wives or parents is very dark and brings tears to the eyes, but that is a day that is coming and we must prepare for it. Even if they live to a ripe old age, they will likely die before you, and you must be ready to handle that sorrow. Your wife may die before you. Your partner for life may be snatched from you before you are prepared.
This is one of the highest points of human suffering, to lose those we love to the abyss of death, not knowing where they are or if they are okay because “God Judges the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). We as Christians believe they are in paradise, but we still fear because we do not know exactly where they are in space and time. This is a natural fear, it does not project lack of faith.
We must be mentally ready to handle a funeral and final goodbyes to our family members.
We must be equipped to handle the sorrow while still conducting ourselves like men on that day. The most masculine men I have ever known have been ones who lose their wife and yet are still at the worship service the very next Sunday. They do not take time off from their highest responsibility to grieve or be sorrowful, there is plenty of time for that. They mourn publicly, grieve at home, and maintain their faith to the highest caliber.
Death is more real than anything we experience. Death is the only thing we cannot avoid. We can cancel meetings and appointments. We can delay, postpone and procrastinate about everything else in life, but we cannot delay death. It is coming for us all, and we must be ready mentally and spiritually for that day.
Mantra
Death comes to all men.
Application
Conquering the fear of death is a Long War. To begin with, you must think about death every day. Just bring it into your consciousness and accept the reality that this flesh is temporary. Eventually you will start to ask yourself questions about the nature of death and about what is beyond death, this is where you build your faith. You can either fear death and stop thinking about it, or you can use the reality of death as a way to motivate yourself into righteousness.
Accepting the reality that we do not have that much time left to live helps to keep us accountable to ourselves and to God.
When we get to this point in our thinking, death becomes a tool and is useful to us rather than something that promotes fear and dread. The only people who dread death are the people who do know what is coming after death, and that is all of us, regardless of what you hear in the religious world.
By meditating on your death, you bring yourself closer to the acceptance of it. We believe that death is not the end. Death should be the most perfect thing in the world to a Christian, because it means that man has put aside his flesh and has gone to a perfect world the likes of which could never be described through language. Paradise is on the horizon for the faithful follower of God.
After you come to grips with your own death, you must immediately turn your mind to the deaths of those you love, and conquer that fear.
For some people, the death of others is easy to accept while their own death is extremely difficult, and for others it is the reverse. Wherever you fall on the spectrum, you must follow the same pattern you used when fighting to accept your own death. You must meditate on the death of your family, because at any time they could be taken from you. How are you going to react if that happens? Will you be a man or will you die?
These applications are not dark and depressing. For some Christians they are sorrowful, but meditating on death gives you the ability and perspective necessary to be extremely thankful for your family while you still have them. Thinking about death makes it less likely that you are going to waste a saturday watching football for ten hours and will instead spend at least a small amount of time with your family, because you are acutely aware of the fact that your time with them could be over at any second.
The stoics used the thoughts of death to keep them grounded in reality and to help them live a good life.
“Memento mori” – a reminder of death.
Death is a tool to help men live a good life, as long as we as men are thinking about it properly.
Life is an allotment of time given to man by God for the purpose of obeying His commands. Some would call life a “gift”, I do not dare to be so naive. Life should be called a test instead of a gift. It is a gut check, a test of internal resolve and personal commitment. When men join the military they go through boot camp and are hit with all kinds of chaos from multiple angles. Some men “survive” and move on while others quit and go home. Some of these men go to advanced warfare training to become a special operations commando. Before they make it to special operations, they endure ridiculous amounts of discomfort. Only those who really want to endure can force themselves to continue.
Eventually these men realize that nothing can hurt them.
The training officers cannot hurt them.
Hours in ice cold water cannot hurt them.
Extreme lack of sleep cannot hurt them.
Physical exercise that puts the highest possible demands on the body cannot hurt them because the mind is stronger than anything material.
Physical training is the gut check for those Men.
Life acts as the gut check for regular men. For those soldiers, extreme difficulty is compressed into a few months. For the common, our difficulty is spread out over all the decades of our life and we never have to endure something so painful as a boot camp. Life is a long, slow war that demands the best from men. The only question is if men can endure all the way to the end of life.
Key: All of life simply is a long delayed gratification experiment.
Can we give up the pleasures we want now for the rewards we want later? Can we endure immediate discomfort for the sake of future enjoyment, or are we too weak?
God has issued commands that are painful to men. God’s commands cause immediate discomfort with the promise of a later reward. There is not a man of flesh on the earth who thinks that saving oneself for marriage is fun or enjoyable. Few men are not tempted by mind altering drugs that would take them away from the pain of the present life. We as men must choose this discomfort and curse the pleasure of sin (Hebrews 11:25).
You have been given a certain allotment of time to live your life. What are you doing with that time?
Are you wasting it for the immediate pleasure of life? Hebrews 11 states that Moses chose to endure affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy the passing pleasure of sin. Most people point to this verse to show that sin does not bring lasting enjoyment. What most Christians deny is the fact that sin is enjoyable. Sin feels great. If it did not feel good then we would not do it. The only question is whether or not you will endure a similar affliction with the people of God or if you will give in to the sin.
The sin will be great immediately, but it will bite you in the end. Righteousness will be painful in the present, but bring enjoyment and satisfaction in the end. The small sins add up to affect your character negatively just as small acts of righteousness compound and reward you with a return on the investment.
You have to choose one of these paths. Not choosing a path is the same as choosing the path of evil – apathy is death. Apathy breeds stagnation. Stagnation breeds disease. Disease breeds death. Choose rather to be a Man and to progress.
Mantra
I am spending my time with frugality and wisdom.
Life – Time is Running Out
Application
Treat the time you have been given the same as if you were given money. Would you waste all the money in your bank on nonsense or would you use it wisely? Invest your time today for the benefits that come tomorrow. Endure discomfort today knowing that you will be compensated for your sacrifice. Examine your life immediately and look at how you are spending your time.
Treat your time the same way you would treat your money and budget it. Write down the things you invest time into and see what you can cut out to replace with more beneficial and profitable investments. Half the work is budgeting the time, following through is easy when you determine in your mind what is worth spending time one.
Use your time budget to break down your spending habits and trim the fat from your days.
Write down what you are doing every waking hour.
Note how you are spending your time hour by hour and you will be shocked at how much time you are wasting.
Wasting too much time watching television? You likely are. Replace it with a profitable habit. Playing too many video games? You likely are. Find a way to make money instead, you will find it more rewarding over time.
Take a realistic inventory of your life: are you pleased with what you have done with your life? If not, take a good look in the mirror at the source of all your problems. Your life is nothing more than the accumulation of the effects of all your choices thus far.
Do not be discouraged if your life is a disgrace to all mankind, you still have time to change.
The intent to change is the catalyst for change, but intent alone will not bring about that transformation of the self. You must begin with intent then move to strategizing. Once you build your strategy for how you will spend your time, you must implement that strategy and be consistent with it, forcing yourself to spend your time wisely through tremendous discipline.
Do not waste the time you are given, there will be plenty of time to take it easy one life ends.
