BOLD & DETERMINED

Being an Ass-kicker means you have to cut out all nonsense, that includes friends and relationships that are not beneficial to you. To live like an Ass-kicking Spartan is to live a bare bones, necessity filled life.

There comes a time when you’ve got to re-assess friendships. In the life of an Ass-kicker there just isn’t any room for low-yield relationships. If your friends don’t serve a definite dual purpose then it’s time to let them go.

Dual purpose friendships: you enjoy spending time with the person and you accomplish an activity.

A low-yield friend is a friend that does not serve a purpose. A friend that just wants to ‘hang out’, gossip, use narcotics, whine or talk about themselves or other nonsense. A low-yield friend is an “energy vampire”, someone who drains you of energy by just spending time with you.

A high-yield friend is a friend you can hit the gym with, train MMA or other activity with, learn something from, or accomplish something with. A high-yield friend energizes you.

An easy test to tell a high-yield friend from a low-yield friend is how often you answer the phone when they call. If you continually don’t answer the phone when they call that’s a sign that they need to be given their walking papers. If you typically answer the phone when they call then they can stay.

Who to give the boot to:

Gossips, Loudmouths, Whiners and Negative Nancy’s.

In the life of an Ass-kicker these types are invisible and speak an alien language that only other idiots can understand. Gossips want to chatter about nonsense. They love to work in an office because they have a captive audience for their baloney and can easily infect you with their disease. This is one great reason to leave the corporate life.

Negative Nancy’s just want to be negative and nasty about everything.

If you’ve got some friends like that it’s time to give those chatter-boxes the boot.

How to Deal with Drama:

Drama does not exist in the life of a Spartan. Drama must be invited in, like a Vampire, or it cannot exist in your world. If you have “dramatic” friends give those narcissists the boot. There’s no time for nonsense. If you wanted to hear about drama you could go searching for the latest celebrity gossip.

This is what you tell your chatter-box friends when they call you about nonsense:

“Don’t ever call me about that BS again.”

Click.

Spending time with friends should serve a purpose. You should get activities done. “Hanging out” is usually a big waste of time. Every second you “hang out” is a second you have wasted. “Hanging out” is keeping you from your goals. When your friends call it should be for a specific purpose. They should call only to give you some pertinent information or invite you to an activity such as weightlifting or social activities on a Saturday night after a week of killing.

If you’ve got free time to spare then go and “hang out” for a little while, but it shouldn’t be routine.

Tell your friends if they have non-pertinent information then they have to e-mail you. E-mails are easier to ignore than a ringing phone. A ringing phone should mean business. A phonecall is an intrusion and should have a specific goal and purpose.

Dealing with girlfriends and girl friends.

A girlfriend is a girl you are romantically and physically involved with. Don’t get caught up in silly phone conversations with girlfriends. Limit conversations to 5 or 10 minutes. Don’t waste time with back-and-forth text messaging. They can talk to you at night, in person, when business is taken care of.

A girl friend is a friend who is a girl. There is no reason to have girl friends. Girl friends serve absolutely no purpose. There are only two reasons males have girl friends 1) They’re gay 2) They’re trying to have sex with the girl and they’re stuck in the friend zone - and that’s just a big old waste of time on a massive scale.

Kick the low yield friends out of your life for good.

Keep the high yield friends.

You’ll be glad you did.

Going to get a haircut is an inefficient time-waster.

• You have to drive the the salon
• you have to sign in to reception
• you have to wait for a stylist
• you have to explain what you want (and they never truly understand)
• you have to get your hair washed (the only enjoyable part)
• you have to put up with small talk about whatever nonsense is happening in pop-culture
• you have to put up with them not doing it right the first time “no, it needs to be shorter so I don’t have to come back for a while“
• you have to look at it in two mirrors, then style it, then finally give it the A-OK
• you have to pay and then you have to pay extra (a tip) for them doing their jobs
• you have to drive back home with an itchy neck and an itchy back
• you have to take a shower and change clothes

All in all you’ve wasted at minimum an hour.

Now let’s look at the Spartan way to cut your own hair:

• buy some clippers for the price of one haircut
• cut your hair in the bathroom
• sweep up the mess
• take a shower
• go kick some ass

Step 1: Buy Some Hair Clippers Here. All hair clipper sets will come with different length hair guards that can cut your hair at any length you so desire. Most of them come with facial hair trimmer attachments as well, so you can rest assured knowing you can trim your beard and your hair with one apparatus. I picked up my clippers at wal-mart several years ago for about $25 and have been using them ever since. Of course, I have lost most of the guards so I only cut my hair in two lengths: short and really short.

Step 2: Dive right in and cut your hair. One of three things will happen:

1) You will like the haircut.

• If you like the D.I.Y. haircut you can skip the stylist forever.

2) You will do a poor job, panic, and drive to a stylist to fix it.

• Better luck next time. Try again until you get it right.

2) You will have to shave it all off.

• If you decide to shave it off you don’t have to worry about doing anything to your hair for months. Keeping a shaved head saves time on styling and saves money on shampoo and hair gel. With a shaved head you’re ready to walk out the door at any time of the day or night without doing anything to your hair. Win win.

Step 3: Clean up the mess, sweep the floor, take a shower. I usually put a stopper in the sink and cut my hair into the sink, when I’m done I can just scoop the hair out of the sink and throw it away.

Some home haircut tips to remember:

• Cut against the grain.
• Keep pressure on the clippers, if you hold them delicately they will not cut your hair even.
• If you don’t want to do it yourself you can have your girlfriend, your mom, your sister, your best buddy, your wife, or your brother cut it for you.
• It’s just hair, it will grow back in no time. If you make a mistake you won’t even notice it in a weeks time.
• Dry hair is easier to cut with clippers, wet hair is easier to cut with scissors.

Recap:

• Home haircuts save money.
• Home haircuts save time.
• Paid haircuts cost money.
• Paid haircuts are a waste of time.
• Cutting your own hair makes you look cool 112% of the time.
• Self-sufficiency, DIY, no BS.
• Save that money, save that time.

Simplifying your life makes things so much easier.

There is no better advice than K.I.S.S.

Keep it Simple Stupid.

Simplicity works. Complexity is often a waste of time. The Deadlift, for example, is just about the simplest exercise in existence. Pick up a heavy weight from the ground. That’s it. But this simple exercise will produce more results that the most complex of exercises or any combination of complex exercises. The guy who deadlifts all the time is worlds apart in muscle mass and strength than the guy who stands one-legged on a bosu ball while curling and pressing kettlebells.

If it can be said effectively in one sentence there is no earthly reason to expand it to 4 or 5 sentences. Succinctness and brevity are always more effective than 13 pages of literary diarrhea. If it can be done in 5 minutes there is no reason to stretch it out to 30 minutes.

Simplicity makes things easier. Hard work is it’s own reward, but making things harder just because is flat out stupid. If it can be done one of two ways 1) the simple way and 2) the complex way only the idiot takes the complex way for the same (or often inferior) result.

Food cooked with 10 ingredients is always inferior in taste and nutrition to food cooked simply and with minimal ingredients. Steak and eggs cooked in butter and seasoned with salt and pepper tastes better than any restaurant meal with a list of fancy ingredients and a 30 minute prep time.

Paying $5,000 cash for a used pickup truck that you will own is always a better idea than leasing a brand new vehicle with a $2500 down payment, paying $487.92 every month for the next 48 months, limiting yourself to 12,000 miles per year and then giving the vehicle back to the dealership and starting the process over again. You could explain those options to the dimmest of dimwits and have him tell you which is the better choice.

Living simply allows you to live freer. You could buy yourself a bunch of fancy new dishes, eating from a weeks worth of dishes before you have to wash them or you could own 2 forks, 2 knives, 2 spoons, 2 bowls, 2 plates, 2 glasses and a spatula and be just as happy with less clutter.

You could have a collection of 1,000 DVD’s that take up a galactic amount of space or you could get rid of them and put all your media onto a computer or an external disk. You could buy new CD’s or you could simply put 5,000 songs onto an mp3 player and listen to anything you want at the drop of a hat. You could have a nice big book collection or you could get an e-book reader and have only one physical book and thousands to read. You could get yourself an expensive phone that will alert facebook if you’re stranded in the Australian Outback or you could get a cheap phone that makes phone calls and sends text messages. You could constantly buy new clothes and never be happy with what you have or you could buy a few items that you can wear for years.

You could strive to own more stuff and deal with the self-imposed imprisonment of you can strive to own less stuff and be free.

The choice is yours. I have already made mine.

The benefits of cold showers are legion. The drawbacks none. The power of will required great. A Battle hardened warrior doesn’t take long hot showers in the morning like a Nancy, he takes brisk cold showers because he’s a tough mother.

Here are the 8 greatest benefits of cold showers:

1) Cold Showers Make You Strong: Taking a cold shower certainly isn’t comfortable, it’s downright uncomfortable. Forcing yourself to do it day in and day out requires a strength of character that most people don’t have. The good news is that you can develop the character, just get in the cold shower and do it. You will build inner strength but pushing yourself through it.

2) Cold Showers are Healthy: Cold showers get your heart pumping like it does during vigorous exercise. You instinctively flex your muscles under a stream of cold water. The combination of the flexing and increased heart rate sends more blood to your muscles which helps to release toxins in the body. Your immune system benefits from cold showers as well.


3) Cold Showers Will Wake You Up: Cold showers are brisk and invigorating. The cold water stimulation and the increased blood flow and heavy breathing result in you being ready to kick ass and take names. No one in the history of the world had to take a nap after a cold shower.


4) Cold Showers are Mood Enhancing: Cold showers help the brain release chemicals help your mood, decrease stress and anxiety and increase energy and the increased blood flow helps your sense of calm. You just plain feel good after a cold shower.


5) Cold Showers Make you More Manly: Everyone remembers being a teenager and hearing that sitting in a hot-tub kills sperm. Cold showers do the opposite. Yes, cold showers can increase sperm count which would lead one to believe it increases testosterone. Try not to kill someone with that loaded gun.


6) Cold Showers Help your Skin and Hair: Cold showers hydrate the hair and skin better leading to healthier hair and skin.


7) Cold Showers Help you Recover from Vigorous Exercise: Athletes often sit in ice baths to help speed up their recovery. You can do ice bath lite and take cold showers.


8 ) Cold Showers Help you save Money: You aren’t using any hot water so you save money that way. When you take cold showers you don’t ever just want to stay in the shower for a long time and relax. You shower for 5 minutes max and get out, ready to take on the world.


Shaving with Cold Water:


If there’s one thing that makes you tougher than showering with cold water it’s shaving with cold water. I switched from hot water shaving to cold water shaving about a year ago and never looked back. I thought it would be tough at first but I was wrong. Cold water shaving is actually easier and gives you a better shave. Hot water softens the whiskers, this is obvious and it’s the reason people shave with hot water. What no one takes into consideration is the fact that soft whiskers are harder to cut. When the whiskers are soft and limp the razor does as much pulling of the whiskers as it does cutting. When you shave with cold water your whiskers don’t get softer, instead they are hard and poking straight out. This makes it way easier to cut them off. My shaving time was cut in half using cold water instead of hot water. I don’t often have to shave the same area over and over. I get less cuts and nicks using cold water as well, probably because I’m not pulling on the whiskers at all.


Get yourself into a cold shower and toughen yourself up. It’s what a Spartan warrior would do and it’s the simple thing to do. Efficiency with a purpose.

A simplified life makes things so much easier.

“Buying” or leasing a brand new vehicle is just about the silliest thing you can do. I say “buying” in quotation marks because when you purchase a brand new vehicle more often than not you finance it. You don’t really buy anything, you put yourself into massive debt, or what I like to call debtors prison.

What happens if you think you have a secure job, you purchase a brand new car to keep up with the Jones’ and six months down the line you get laid off or fired? You still have the car payment barreling down on you like a semi going full speed on your direction. Let me tell you, as a person who has both financed a car and been fired many times it gets very worrisome trying to come up with that car payment every single month when I’ve got no income.

Same scenario: you get laid off or fired. This time, however, you were smart enough to save up a couple grand and you purchase your vehicle in cold, hard cash. All you have to worry about now is paying for gas and paying for insurance. Average liability only insurance premiums for an American are $900 per year, and if you were smart you pay six months in advance. That means all you worry about is gas.

The average price paid for a new car is $28,400. At a modest 6% interest rate over four years you pay a grand total of $32,014.79 (assuming no down payment or trade-in) and $666.97 per month. That much money per month can let you live comfortably in a decent apartment. Imagine getting rid of that six hundred bucks per month in expenses. You can save up for a few months and buy a car in cash and never worry about making another car payment again. Taking the bus for a few months is a great trade-off in never making another car payment.

Even if you pay for the car in cash there is no reason to purchase a brand-new vehicle. As soon as you drive that car off the lot it’s value plummets. Purchase the same car a year or two old and save yourself some money. In one year that brand new car you bought is now an old car and you wasted several thousand dollars.

Of course, if you live in a city with a good public transportation system you can get rid of the car permanently. Even better because then you save money on gas and insurance AND get you don’t have to drive in grid-iron, bumper to bumper traffic.

Look familiar?

If possible, riding a bicycle or a moped (I know it looks stupid) is an excellent money saving method of travel and if you ride a bike you will get tons of great exercise. I dare you to find a fat person who rides a bike everyday. Driving a car is one of the most dangerous things you can do. As an added bonus you save yourself a 1 in 84 chance of dying in a car accident. You could die thousands of times in a car accident before ever winning the lottery or being eaten by a shark.

Use your bicycle to impress girls.

There you have it, trade in that money hemorrhaging hunk of junk, get ride of those payments, save up and get yourself a cash car that gets good mileage and has a reputation for buying a quality vehicle.

I won’t go into much detail about the absurdity of leasing a car other than to say you are paying an arm and a leg to rent a car, you have to carry full coverage insurance, you are limited to a certain number of miles…you might as well drive a car with a gas leak. You could just give $20 to every single person you meet and make some new friends.

Simplify your lives, gentlemen. It makes things so much easier.

Spartans were notorious for living a simple, frugal, minimalist lifestyle. They ate only what they needed, kept their bodies fit, did not spend money wastefully. A minimalist lifestyle is much more rewarding than the standard consumer lifestyle. To live a minimalist lifestyle you get by on the least amount possible and don’t concern yourself with over-indulgence. That’s gluttony.

It’s quite easy to live like a Spartan. All you need to do is get rid of the junk, the clutter. Go through your belongings and sell or give away anything you don’t absolutely need. Start small at first, but once you get rid of the junk it can feel quite liberating and you may want to have that feeling again. Great! Do it.

Take a look at your finances and see where you are spending money thoughtlessly and cut back on it. If you’re spending $40 a month on haircuts invest a few bucks on some clippers and cut your own hair. If you’re eating out all the time start actually buying groceries and making your own food. Restaurant food is garbage and will make you fat, quitting it is win-win.

If you’re paying $600 a month on the cool new car sell it and buy yourself a cash car. $2000 a month on rent, move to a less expensive place. It’s not as hard as it sounds. All it takes is the commitment to do it.

We have all been in the situation where we are having a difficult time making our outrageous rent payments, mortgage payments, credit card payments, car payments, lease payments. All for stuff that does not increase our happiness or make our lives better. That shit is like a weight on our shoulders, crushing us little by little. Get rid of all those burdens and it feels like a huge weight has been lifted off our shoulders.

How to Start a Business the Spartan Way

Imagine this scenario: a man wants to be self-employed, hates his job and wants to be in business for himself. He feels that he cannot do so because he has so many payments to make there is just no way he can make enough money right away to take care of all those obligations. So he just endures. He keeps at his soul-stealing job so he can keep making those payments, keep consuming, keep himself down.

The opposite scenario is this: a man wants more than anything to start his own business. He feels extremely passionate about it. He will do anything to make to succeed. He has all the same bills and junk to pay for as the other man. This man, however, is willing to do what it takes. He sells his car that he is making payments on and he buys a cash car. He cuts up his credit cards and is determined never to use them again. He turns off his cable TV, and instead sends the money in to pay off those credit cards. He sells all his extra junk, electronics and so forth, anything that is not absolutely needed he gets rid of. He sells his house and moves into a cheap little apartment. He cooks his own food instead of eating out all the time.

He uses all his energy and resources to make his business work. He doesn’t care about having the latest cool phone, he knows it doesn’t matter. It’s hard but he finally makes his business work. It’s 5 years later and the man is basically retired. His business is on auto-pilot and he is living the good life. The other man who was scared to quit his job is still going into the same miserable job, buying the same miserable junk, living a miserable existence.

It’s hard to leave a steady job knowing you have bills to pay. But is it harder than living a miserable existence dependent completely on someone else?

If you’ve got a job making 50k a year and you have 30k worth of bills per year why not get rid of all those bills, make 20k on your own and live freer and happier?

That’s how you live like a Spartan. Get rid of all the bullshit and live with what you need, not what you have been spoonfed by advertising to think you need.

Simplify your lives, gentlemen. It makes things so much easier.