Fierce Gentlemans Foundations

The Fierce Gentleman has a lot to do in the world.

A typical Fierce Gentleman reader is working a full-time job, raising a child, applying to adopt another child, building a shed, cutting firewood, planting a salad garden, and also has a side business he’s starting up in his spare time.

(Yes, this was an actual email I got.)

The greater your gift, the greater the demands placed on you by the world.

And the greater the demands, the more crucial it is that you build a rock-solid physical and mental foundation that can bear up under all that demand.

With that said, here’s what I consider the essentials of physical & mental health: the Fierce Gentlemans Foundations.

FOUNDATION ONE: MENTAL DIET

You are what you are, and where you are, because of what has gone into your mind.

You can change what you are and where you are by changing what goes into your mind.

Because of this, your mental diet is the first and foremost in importance.

To understand your mental diet, answer this question:

What is the first thing you take into your mind when you wake up?
What is the last thing you take into your mind before you sleep?

Far too many men I know answer the first question “My email” or “The Internet“”, and far too many men I know end their days with violent TV shows, or violent arguments with their spouse.

Ancient wisdom says “Don’t let the sun set on your anger.” As for the Internet, it is a tool that can be used for good or ill. Without great discipline, it defaults to being a time-wasting, attention-fracturing tool of mass distraction.

The mental inputs you take first thing in the morning set the tone for the day, so the F.G. makes them the most positive, energizing, uplifting inputs you can possibly manage. (That’s usually not his email inbox.)

It could be an ancient wisdom book like the Bible, the Qur’an, the Bhagavad Gita, some Camus or Pope or Schweitzer or even the Dalai Lama. Let these great minds touch yours across the centuries and lift it up.

Your initial morning inputs should concentrate your mind, deepen and still it, and allow you to gather your Presence for the day. My father rose between 4-5am, before anyone else in the family, to get work done. I now rise between 430-5am to gather inspiration from wisdom texts, and to spend at least 20 minutes in quiet meditation, letting the wisdom sink into my mind.

The Buddhists call this “setting the day”. You are planting the seeds of peace, equanimity, and strength that you will continue to tend and water throughout the next 16 to 20 hours.

Feed your mind optimism, hope, and calm before you feed your body. Spend at least 20 minutes in quiet relaxation, allowing your mind to gather itself for the day, before your family wakes up.

Improving your mental diet is as much about elimination as it is about addition. While you are adding wisdom books and uplifting media, you must also subtract useless and fear-based “news”, the mindless chatter that makes up 99% of blogs and Facebook and Twitter posts, and the violent, superficial or gossip-based movies and TV shows that make up 99% of our “entertainment”.

Cleaning up your mental diet will make cleaning up your physical diet at least 50% easier.

FOUNDATION ONE SUMMARY:

Eliminate negative influences in your mental diet.
Add positive words, images & media in their place.
Spend the first 10-20 minutes of the day in silence, in mental relaxation or meditation.

FOUNDATION TWO: PHYSICAL DIET

“Let food be thy medicine.” -Hippocrates

I recently went through a move to a new job in a new city.

Working 12-hour days and hustling to find suitable housing, my diet went into ‘survival mode’: I ate more than my usual share of processed food, fewer fruits & vegetables, and much less clean meat.

This had dramatic effect on my work productivity and presence-in-the-world. I was a shadow of my usual self. My work performance suffered.

As I was able to return to my normal diet, everything about my life improved.

I share this story so you don’t underestimate what a totally different life you could be living if you really cleaned up your diet.

When I say ‘clean’, here’s what I’m talking about:

Replacing soda, energy drinks & alcohol with water & green tea.
Reducing processed, refined foods in your diet by 75-99%
Eating those 8-12 servings of fresh, local, in-season fruits & vegetables like everyone has always told you to. (Below, I’ll share a shortcut that makes this easier).
Adding fresh, local, nutrient-loaded meats, nuts, yogurts, beans, mushrooms, organ meats & legumes (and seafood if you live near the coast).
Adding a few of the most scientifically-backed supplements to your regular diet.

Once you do this, you will notice a drastic improvement in your mood, happiness, & ability to accomplish great things in the world — or your money back.

A word about money. Eating in this way is more expensive. In the long run, however, we can’t afford not to eat this way. How expensive is it to be forced into early retirement because of health problems? How expensive is it to be the sole breadwinner for your family and be incapacitated by illness? How expensive are cancer treatments?

Spending your food dollar with local farmers also means your money stay in the community, building the local economy. Now, nobody knows what’s going to happen as the 21st century unfolds, but we can be pretty sure that these three things will be really beneficial: local food, local energy, and strong local economies. Buying from local farmers hits two out of three.

Here is a comprehensive list of the ‘clean diet’ that I have adopted, along with the relevant research that backs up the benefits:

Beverages: Green tea (anti-cancer, dental health). Coffee w/ real cream or milk and no added sugar (diabetes, liver & heart protection). Cocoa beverage (heart health).
Fruits: apples, bananas, cranberries (dental health), blueberries (anti-cancer), strawberries (anti-cancer).
Vegetables: spinach, kale (anti-cancer), chard, broccoli, & mushrooms (anti-cancer).
Proteins: Lentils, black beans, farm-fresh & free-range eggs, chicken, beef or buffalo meat, organ meats, and locally-caught seafood. (For a good summary of the research on all this stuff, read the book Real Food by Nina Planck.)
Fats: coconut oil, olive oil, avocado, real farm butter.
Starches / carbs: quinoa, sprouted grain bread, potatoes.
Supplements & Spices: fish or krill oil (immune & heart health) creatine (brain health & athletic performance), flax seeds, ginseng, garlic (blood pressure), cinnamon, nutmeg, (anti-cancer), CoQ10 (blood pressure), probiotics (immune function).

There is so much to this diet that most people will only want to tackle on point at a time.

I suggest you start with simply switching to plain green tea, or drinking your coffee black, or with only real cream from cows that eat grass.

How do you get all those vegetables into your diet? Here’s the trick I mentioned earlier: try juicing or blending. Both allow you to get maximum nutrients with minimum time and chewing investment. Whip up 2-3 blended green drinks or juices per day and you’ll be set to go.

In general, your food should come from a farm as near to you as possible. Of course this is very difficult in some areas of the world. Just do your best.

FOUNDATION TWO SUMMARY:

Eat fresh, local, and in-season food.
Avoid eating anything that came from a package.
Avoid drinking anything with more than two ingredients.
Eat 3x more vegetables and fruits than any other food group.

FOUNDATION THREE: REST.

Your body and mind being under intense demands, repair and recovery time is required.

Resting for as many hours as needed is not selfish. It is selfless. You must give your best self to the world; and in order for your self to operate at its best, it must rest.

Chronic sleep debt or working a night shift is actually carcinogenic.

Spending twenty minutes in quiet meditation or relaxation at the start and end of the day will drastically increase the quality of your rest. People who complain that their mind “won’t stop running” when they lie down will especially benefit from this advice.

Sleep deprivation is chronic. The weekend is for recalibration. If your family or job robs you of sleep through the week, you must take at least two nights on the weekends to “rebalance the books” on your sleep account.

Going to sleep earlier is more effective than sleeping late in this case. People always ask me how I can rise at 430am. The answer: I am asleep by 9pm most nights.

Your results may vary, but the laws that govern your physical and mental repair processes do not.

FOUNDATION THREE SUMMARY

Rest as much as required.
At least once per 7-day period, rebalance the sleep books.
Remember that allowing yourself quality rest is giving a gift to the world.

FOUNDATION FOUR: EXPOSE YOURSELF TO POSITIVE STRESS

This world has filled us all with negative stress: toxic chemicals in the environment, toxic emotions in our “entertainment” and relationships, and toxic habits in our businesses & communities.

It’s thus crucially important to detoxify ourselves from all the negative stress, and just as important to add positive stress to our lives.

(For more, see this article on good stress vs. bad stress.)

Positive stress, such as lifting weights, playing soccer, reading hard books, or solving hard math problems, leads to personal growth.

This is why we recommend all Fierce Gentleman have at least a four-day-per-week exercise routine, according to your tastes: anything from lacrosse to weightlifting can be beneficial, so long as it continues for longer than 20 minutes and causes you to break out into a sweat.

As you gain willpower & self-discipline as a result of improving your mental & physical diets, you may then also add learning a second language, teaching yourself to program, or tackling the classic literature you’ve always wanted to read.