Life isn’t just about what you accomplish. It’s also about how you live it. The best way to look back and never have any regrets is to have a foundation that is constant. Something you can always fall back on. This is mine.
Brien James – National President and founder
A couple of times when I have been interviewed, they have asked me what I would say to people if I could say anything. A defining message. A summary. I didn’t nail it on the spot, but this is what I wish I would have said. These are the thoughts that always come back to when I try to encapsulate what my life has meant to me. I like to bring it back out and share every now and then because honestly… it’s the best I’ve got.
BE A MAN
The best way to keep the chimps and hyenas at bay is to mold yourself into a lion or a gorilla. Humans are animals too. Be a ferocious one. Be the hero of your own life story. An able protector. A warrior.
Instead of watching formidable men play sports and obsessing over it, go to the gym. Skip the bar Friday night and buy some boxing gloves with your buddies. Get punched in the face. Realize that you aren’t fragile. Carrying a warm, mildly sore, black eye around feels good. It makes you feel alive. It may just end up being the first time you ever really felt like a man in your life. Try it. Learn the difference between pain and injury. Realize that they both heal quicker than fear or shame. Make yourself formidable. Stand up to anyone and everything that you think is wrong. You might get hurt. You might get arrested. You might even die in the process.
Alternatively, you also might live to be 90. You might literally rot to death before your own eyes. A helpless burden on everyone you have ever loved. Having successfully lived a long and safe life that didn’t mean shit. No one talked about you. No one felt the way about you… that you felt about those bold men you read about, or watched on TV. Knowing that your sons never envied your feats. They envied the feats of imaginary heroes and villains that the media created while they sat beside you on the couch. You might just live vicariously, for 90 years, through anyone and everyone that society tells you to, while leaving behind a third-world fucking dump for your posterity. You might do that also. Is that what you are being careful for? Is that why you follow all of the rules? Is this life’s great reward? Safety and compliance as society erodes?
Try waking up tomorrow and realizing that you are an animal. Maybe a smarter animal. A more civilized animal. Still an animal. Your soul craves excitement, dominance, contest, love, lust, hate and the assurance of the survival of your bloodline. All things that you believe are reserved for others. Things you have been told are primitive and evil. They are not. They are the only reason you are here. Deny them and you will stay miserable. You will look up to people that don’t exist. You will live long, die empty, and regret it all from the afterlife. Or you can embrace being the bad guy.
Be a man.
The American Guard 