Peace Through Strength: Your Regular Reminder to Get Strong Physically, Mentally and Financially
I’ve recently taken to watching Korean and Japanese movies on my many flights. Korean movies about their fight for independence against a vicious & repressive Imperial Japan during the turn of the 20th century like “Assassin” or “The Battle: Roar of Victory.” And basically any Japanese samurai movie. I highly recommend “The Pass: Last Days of the Samurai”. These are all Incredibly well written action movies.
Watching these movies I get a sense of unease as it's a reminder of a scarier time. That chaos and violence that can appear anytime and at any moment. Savages & barbarians that can come over the mountain and disrupt your life brutally as we have seen with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel.
Strength is strength. We’ve gotten used to peace & prosperity. And many of us have gotten complacent. Or worse, adopting self-damaging ideology like Wokeism that makes us give up our strengths out of guilt. We fear exercising power but our many enemies do not. If we continue down this path we will be at the mercy of others. Reliant on their good will and benevolence. And this is the worst situation any person or country can be in.
The reality is that we are entering an ugly new world for a while. As a history major and global macro watcher, I see that we are leaving a Unipolar Hegemony, the Western world order run by the United States and the almighty US Dollar. We are going towards one of multipolar sort, of many new strong players like China/ Russia/ Iran, as well as India, Turkey, Poland, Nigeria, Indonesia among the top of the list.
Many new players are showing up. Each with their own interests. A works with no permanent allies, only permanent interests. It’s going to be chaotic. And we let it happen because of incompetence, corruption, decadence, arrogance and complacency in the West. This is what kills empires, countries and companies throughout history.
But it’s not too late. We need to understand that good intentions need to be backed up with power and strength. Power and strength is neutral and can be used for good or evil. Our peace, values, freedoms and way of life must be defended against both internal and external enemies.
As a country, we need to rebuild our industrial base, our education and repair the cultural/economic divide in our society. Drive out wokeism, DEI & ESG garbage from our government, schools and Companies and be more pragmatic.
At the foundational level, fix your brain. Meditate. Fix your media diet, stop watching the news both Fox and CNN and MSNBC are garbage. They are both wings of the same bird filling your brain with useless drivel. Manage your social media intake better. And for heaven’s sake and your own sanity, please stop scrolling through IG or TikTok. These dopamine hits wreck your ability to focus. Go read some books on history and business or watch documentaries. Learn to think critically and for yourself. Get mentors that could be virtual or historical or real.
But before you get financially fit, you have to get physically fit. Go to the gym, fix your diet and have less processed foods. Fix your sleep and train in some fighting arts. There is no excuse to be out of shape or obese unless you have an injury or medical condition. Otherwise, you will become a burden to your family and society. A dependent on others.
At the individual level, every man needs to get their financial act together. Make money and fight the hedonic treadmill. Stop being a consumer and become a producer. Build and Make something. Sell something. The tools exist and there are plenty of problems out there to solve. The Solopreneurship wave is here. This is your path away from dependency on others.
Do this and you can unite your thought, sight and action. Live focused lives like the Japanese samurai did. Singular in purpose. As Lord Kawai said in “The Pass”: “Our strength of will is the only thing that can save this domain.”
Find other people who are into self improvement and build your tribe. It’s gonna be ugly and you don’t want to be a lone wolf in this mess. But a tribe will only accept you if you bring something to the table and are able to hold your own.
The point is we are fast running out of time. It will be chaotic at Global level, country level and city level. We are already seeing the rise of crime and break down of civil order in many cities in Europe as well as the blue states in the USA due to the stupid policies being implemented in these places.
My question to you is do you want to be part of the solution or part of the problem? If you prepare yourself, you may even begin to thrive in this new world order. This is a time that we will see the rise of many warlords and caudillos aka strongmen, as they are called in Latin America. Not the world I want but it’s the world we are in. One that requires perpetual readiness.
Take responsibility for your own life and destiny NOW before it’s too late. Lord Kawai said: “From now on, we rely on ourselves! As a modest domain, only self reliance, self respect and belief in our own strength will allow us to survive! Do your best and let Heaven take care of the rest.”