Recently, I’ve been reading the peaceful warrior series written by Dan Millman. In it he talks about his training in the ways of wisdom. The first book takes place with the main character Dan, a collegiate gymnast, meeting a wise gas station clerk that teaches him the path of wisdom — the path of the peaceful warrior.

He’s torn between two worlds, pursuing wisdom and going with the normal flow of college living: tons of sex, tons of drinking, athletic training and status games. While he keeps up his college student persona during the day, he spends his nights training the wisdom components of his life. He meditates for hours, works with grounding himself in the reality of the present, cultivating non-reactivity among other capacities.

The entire energy of the book encompasses the inner tension between the pull of the modern american lifestyle with the pull of peaceful warrior training: a tension that I grapple with daily.

Everyone Can Do Peaceful Warrior Training

Upon reading the book, I’ve gotten really excited about the possibility of peaceful warrior training myself.

I’ve been wondering what it looks like to cultivate wisdom in a society that seems to be totally adverse to it. There are inner capacities and skills that aren’t as physically obvious as building muscle or a number in a bank account, yet they’re even more important.

These are subtle psycho-emotional skills, bringing wisdom into how we relate with others, training non-reactivity, psychological resilience, depth of presence that pervades all situations, assertiveness, conviction, unapologetic authenticity, warmth for self and others, radical self-honesty, vulnerability, and non-attachment to the stories of life. 

It’s not always obvious how to progressively train these skills and how to know if we’re actually making headway on deepening these capacities. Yet, being oblivious to them also isn’t an option. We will hurt more people than we can fathom if we don’t root ourselves in these capacities. Non-action isn’t an option.

The world needs the depth of our training and if we don’t cultivate these capacities, opportunities for reconciliation and depth of love will be missed out on. Choosing not to take advantage of the opportunities we’ve been given in life is the same as choosing to hurt others with our lack of warmth, vulnerability, presence and non-reactivity. Complacency is a vote for a less beautiful world. 

The stakes are high. But they’re not out of reach. Yes it’s going to be difficult, but who ever said that life was supposed to be easy.

My Life’s Mission: Stewarding the Culture to Realize Meaning and Wisdom

It’s been becoming clearer and clearer to me what my mission is in life.

I’m here to guide people towards the realization of wisdom and meaning. There are millions/billions of people in the world caught in the throes of nihilism and this visceral feeling that ‘the world is meaningless and I don’t have a place in it.’ Or that ‘I don’t have what it takes to meaningfully participate in the more beautiful world that I want to see.’

My calling is to work with this very nihilism and to create comprehensive protocols, training programs, experiences, IRL groups, facilitated conversations and whatever it takes to help people not only glimpse other realities, but to ground their baseline level of consciousness in these other possibilities.

Ultimately, the beliefs and core assumptions of our selfhood influence the felt experience of the world we live in. If we shake the ground of the core assumptions and lay down the path toward more meaningful and supportive ontologies (conceptions of self) then we can change the felt experience of life itself and ultimately shift the culture from the ground up.

My Current Attempt at Physicalizing This Mission

The vehicle through which this mission is physicalizing in the world is through the organization I’m co-creating called Phoenix Culture. There are multiple pillars of this organization that are being developed side-by-side, but the one that’s most activated right now is the experience we’re running called the Hero100.

We’ve created the Hero100 from the ethos that cultivating the capacities of a peaceful warrior doesn’t happen in a day or a week. It happens with sustained effort over time. The quantity of healing programs and experiences out there is endless, but where are the advanced levels of training?

Where is the multi-month programs that actually hold you accountable to showing up for yourself day in and day out.

Since transformation requires months, years, decades of practice then we feel that there must also be programs and experiences that are supportive to long-term devotional transformation.

And the Hero100 is what we’ve created for you to show up for the more cultivation of more subtle qualities and capacities within yourself (what I was referring to earlier as the peaceful warrior skills.)

The essence of the challenge is that you will commit to 6 transformative practices for 100 days without stopping.

• 100 days: combining discipline and devotion to show up for yourself.

• 6 daily disciplines: cold shower, intermittent fasting, insight journaling, seated meditation, material downsizing, and a final personal ritual of your choosing.

• Direct 1:1 accountability: a team member will keep you on track and making progress every day.

• Live community support: share your wins, learn from your mistakes, and do this together alongside a group of fellow warriors (already open & active!).

• 10 hours of active workshops: a kick-off call, 30/60/90 day check-ins, and a completion celebration to help you dive deeper, maintain momentum, and bond with your group.

• Personal progress tracker: your own personal tracker to gain momentum from success and a beautiful totem of your success at the end.

• Gamified incentives: every day you’re successful you receive $1 credited back to you. Get paid for your accomplishments by the end of it.

• A transformative practice: your personal ritual has the power to shape your life. Take action on bucket-list projects with the support, accountability, and incentives already included. 

Imagine who you’d be after 1200+ hours of fasting, 5 hours in cold showers, 30 hours in meditation and contemplation, hours and hours with the support of community and the wisdom of the collective, and 100 completions of your own personal project – what could possibly phase you?

A difficult conversation? Easy. Standing up for your values? No sweat. Making the difficult decision to pursue your dreams? You’re on it. 

It is impossible to overstate the impact of proving to yourself, through evidence, your power and ability to overcome anything that stands in your way. 

This is the Hero100 and the doors are closing in 12 hours (at the end of today.)

We are starting the challenge on April 1st!

Would love for you to join me in this challenge.