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Hello brothers! Today I am doing something slightly different and sharing a personal story that I think is relatable and useful in important ways. Even if the particulars of the circumstances are not something you have experienced, the basics make it applicable and helpful to unpack. This is the story of some plots I wanted to buy in Tulum, Mexico, and what happened when things did not go as planned. This example can help us understand how to avoid giving authority to the mind, how to know which decisions to make, and most importantly, how to read the signs and act with faith and fortitude.
We start off by differentiating between fortitude and faith, and why understanding their different roles is vital. Fortitude is about pushing back and onwards when we encounter difficulties or resistance. There are certain times when we should not compromise our vision or goal, and pushing back against a difficult circumstance will often bear fruit that makes the effort worth it, brothers.
So how does faith fit into this then? Faith is the belief that an external future will be better than the mental projection of the internal future. For many of us, faith has a religious connotation, and I have spoken about faith at length on this podcast before, so you are encouraged to go back and listen to those episodes, if you have not already. As you will see in my example, there is a time to use faith, and the combination of fortitude and faith at the right time is what we should be aiming for. We cannot override all circumstances and using faith as a response, and knowing that the universe has something great for you, is the true power we possess!
Want to know more about what I do and how I can help you? Sign up for a free 45-minute session with me, and I’ll show you how this works!
What You’ll Learn from This Episode:
- The important differences between fortitude and faith.
- When to activate fortitude and when to use faith.
- The problem with using the mind to make decisions.
- Making better decisions using a combination of faith and fortitude.
- The hidden lesson: all outcomes are equal!
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
- Enroll for the Elevated Alpha Society Spartan Academy here.
- Sign up for Unleash Your Alpha, your guide to shifting to the Alpha mindset.
[INTRODUCTION]
ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Alpha Male Coach Podcast, the only podcast that teaches men the cognitive mastery and alpha mindset that it takes to become an influential and irresistible man of confidence. Here’s your host, certified life coach and international man of mystery, Kevin Aillaud.
[DISCUSSION]
[0:00:32.6] KA: What’s up, my brothers? Welcome back to The Alpha Male Coach Podcast. I am your host, Kevin Aillaud and I am going to get personal today, my friends. You see, I am dealing with something in my life that I believe is very common in structure. I believe that this quagmire I’m dealing with is common in structure, even if the specific content doesn’t fully resonate with you. Because the basic structure I’m talking about is when to use fortitude to get what you want and when to let go of what you want, knowing that something better is coming in the future.
Now, before I tell my story which I will do my best to keep short by the way, I’m going to describe the difference between fortitude and faith. Because when I say fortitude, I mean pushing hard for what you want. The definition of fortitude is courage in pain or adversity, so fortitude is when you run into a barrier and you just keep going. You run into adversity and you just keep pushing to get to your goal, no matter what happens, you keep going. You keep pushing hard, never back down.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going and all those other cliches and platitudes that are common in our lexicon. For many of us, this is what we are conditioned to believe. I hear it all the time. I hear it from several sources, I hear it from social media, it’s all over Instagram and Facebook. I see it in movies and I read it in books, I hear it when people are talking. I hear it from coaches in every industry from sport to life.
[0:01:59.3] Don’t give up, keep fighting, the struggle will be worth it. If it’s what you want, don’t let anyone or anything stop you. These are the messages that many of us have grown up with, delivered to us by parents, teachers, coaches and friends, and I’m not saying that they are bad or wrong nor am I saying they are good or right. These are simply sentences that create beliefs then behaviors.
Then there’s faith brothers. When I say faith, I mean, knowing that the external future will be better than the mental projection of the internal future, which means that the future will be better than you expect it to be, the definition of faith is complete trust or confidence in someone or something. In this case, the complete trust is in the universe, it’s in the future, it’s knowing that the universe will unfold for you, something better than what you expect or can even imagine and for many of us, this has a religious connotation.
Faith usually comes from a religious context being centered around having faith in a higher power. Trust in God, God will provide, surrender to the will of God and you can use any term you want here, right? Depending on what your specific religion is, you could say the source will provide, you could say, Allah will provide, you could say Jesus will provide, you will say the universe will provide. You could say the great architect will provide. It doesn’t matter what you call the higher power, this is generally where the concept of faith is most often used.
[0:03:22.0] I have done a podcast episode on faith and you are welcome to go back and listen to that in its entirety, I’m not going to go deeper into the concept of faith itself in this episode. I am only going to explain when to activate faith versus engaging in fortitude.
Okay brothers, here is my situation and I’m going to use this as an example of when to use fortitude versus faith. Here is my story. As you may or may not know, I recently bought some land in Tulum, Mexico. I love it there. Guys, I love it in Tulum. It’s so amazing. I’m not going to go into that because I can talk about it forever but basically what happens is, I didn’t actually buy the land. I reserved two lots in a community that is being developed over three phases and each phase takes a year to complete and the community is broken up into 12 sections.
Each section has lots numbered from one up to however many lots there are in that section. Some sections have seven lots, right? Some sections have 90 lots and when I first received the map of the community, it was not broken into sections. Okay, I only know that there are 12 sections because of where I am today, which I’ll get to in a moment.
When I first received the map, I did not see that it was broken into sections. I quickly saw the lots that I wanted and they were available. Available lots were white on the map and reserved lots were red and both the lots I wanted were white and not reserved. I didn’t spend a lot of time looking at the map, I found the lots I wanted and I got my intuition about them.
I had my inner authority tell me it was right for me so I told my broker to reserve lot 76 and 77. Of course I put the down payment on these two lots. This is where things get weird. Since there were several sections that had lots listed as 76 and 77, my broker assumed I was talking about lots that were in a different section than the lots I was requesting to be reserved. He thought that I was talking about lots that were in a different section that were in phase one where the sections that I was really looking at, the lots I was really looking at was in a section in phase two.
Furthermore, the lots he thought I was referring to were already reserved, isn’t that bananas? He thought that the lots I wanted were already reserved, so instead of reserving the lots I wanted, or the lots he thought I wanted because they were already reserved, he reserved two lots that he thought were about the same size and roughly the same location as the lots that were already reserved, which again, brothers, were not the lots that I was actually aiming to reserve.
Now, I know this might sound a little complicated. It might be getting a little complex but it gets even more complex. I’m trying to explain this as clearly as possible so you can understand what’s going on.
[0:05:59.3] Remember, it’s not the content of the problem, it’s not the content of the predicament, it is the structure of the predicament. Because when I received the contract for the lots, the price was off. It was not the price that I thought it was, it was quite a bit lower actually than I had originally thought the cost for the two lots that I wanted would be.
I didn’t have a problem with paying less as you could probably imagine, I did not have a problem with paying less. However, there was several other errors with the contract and so I setup a call with my broker and the developer.
Now, this was the phone call where I discovered that my broker had reserved the wrong lots. He explained that the two lots I wanted were reserved so he talked to the developer to find me a couple of similar lots. Never once did he check with me about this, nor did he confirm with me which lots I wanted, apparently, he didn’t know that there were multiple 76s and 77s in the development in the community. Now, how a broker cold not know this is beyond me, considering it is his job to sell these lots and he works with the sales team.
In my mind, how could he not know that there were multiple 76s and 77s and how could he not confirm with me which 76 and 77 lots I was actually aiming to reserve. Anyway, I find out that I have the wrong lots reserved so I tell my broker this and we look at the map where the two lots I wanted to reserve are and now only 77 is available because now 76 has been reserved by someone else.
[0:07:23.7] This was tough news to hear because you can imagine my initial reaction. I don’t know if I’ve explained the story adequately enough to you, brothers, but essentially, what happened was, I reserved two lots, my broker didn’t reserve those lots for me, he reserved two other lots and then when I went back to make sure that – to get those two lots, one of them had already been reserved.
Now, I can’t reserve these because somebody else has already reserved them. The story that was going on in my mind was creating frustration. You could even say that it was creating anger. I was angry, I was actually quite upset. My broker apologized of course, you know, the developer didn’t say anything. I think he felt the tension in the call.
The best either of them was able to offer me was to choose other lots in the community and that was where it was left. Chose other lots, get back to us. Now, I have been looking over this map of this community, trying to find other lots that satisfy what I loved about the lots I originally chose. I can’t find any. Well, let me put it this way. I have not been able to find any lots that give me the same intuitive yes that these two lots did. I haven’t been able to find other lots that my inner authority approves of. Because here’s what we’re talking about, brothers. We’re talking about a piece of paper, we’re talking about a piece of paper with lines and colors on it.
[0:08:32.4] I had not seen these lots. These lots are in development, they are being built as we speak, there’s nothing out in the jungle right now, there’s just a map, there’s just an idea of the way the community’s going to look. I have not seen any of these lots. I’m only looking at a piece of paper and when I look at this piece of paper, I get this feeling about these two lots that I don’t get about any other lot on this paper.
Now, don’t get me wrong brothers. There are plenty of lots available and I’m certain that any one of them would be adequate enough to build on and create the home that I love. The discrepancy isn’t in the neutral world. The discrepancy is in my energy mechanics. It isn’t that there is anything wrong with any of these other lots. It is simply that my inner authority isn’t drawn to any of these other lots. Could I create an intentional model of alignment to choose the story t hat makes it okay to reserve other lots? Of course, I can. That is cognitive master, that is something that I mention on the podcast last week. I can create a new story in order to have a new experience. I can let the anger vibrate through me and engage my mind with a new story that serves me better.
This is a possibility and of course, I’ve already done that as you will find out by the end of this episode. It’s something that you probably assumed that I did that, right? Being the alpha male coach, that’s what I do. I monitor my mind. Check this out though. This is why energy mechanics is the continuation of cognitive mastery.
[0:09:47.7] I can and have determined a new thought to have around this circumstance. I have let the anger go and I have accepted a new thought and now what? You see, the circumstance hasn’t changed, I’m still in the same predicament, I’m still in the same situation. I just have a new story and a new experience around it. I still have an action to take and the A line action from the intentional model of alignment doesn’t give me clarity on which decision to make. It only allows me to show up differently in front of my broker and the developer.
I still have a quagmire that requires me to make a choice on how to proceed. If you remember when I began to introduce you to energy mechanics, I told you that the mind is not a decision maker. It has no decision-making authority. It contains information, it contains inspiration but it does not contain truth. The source within you that knows which decisions are correct for you is your personal inner authority.
Okay brothers, what would you do? Let me throw this back to you, what would you do? Maybe you would put together a pro/con list. That is definitely using the mind as an authority, no? You set up the goods and bad and weigh them out in some kind of logical manner. The problem with doing that is that the mind is biased and the circumstance is neutral. Either your mind will make one side of the list stronger due to your biased or both sides of the list will just go on forever.
[0:11:11.6] A pro/con list is like the exercise that I’ve offered for you to do on your past. Where I’ve offered that you take one piece of paper, take a sheet of paper and a pen and on one side of the piece of paper, write down all the bad things that your brain tells you about your childhood, right? All the stories that you’re telling yourself about how horrible your childhood was and on the other side of the paper, write down all the amazing things your brain tells you about your childhood.
This is basically a pro/con list. One side will be easier to fill due to the bias of the mind but both sides of will get filled because with enough mining through neutral, you will find stories to satisfy both good and bad. A pro/con list is only an experiment in neutrality, t hat experiment and brain storming.
It doesn’t help in making a decision. Of course, you can make a decision using your mind, you can make a decision using a pro/cons list and many people do. Sometimes the decision just correct for them and other times, it is not making a decision with the mind is a coin flip because the mind is just providing stories around a decision.
What else? What is another option for me? We’ve got the pro-con list as well that we can do. I can ask somebody, right? I could call a family member or I could call a friend. I could talk to them about what I’m dealing with and I could see what they say or what advice they give. Well, that is another option and it never hurts to get someone else’s opinion on a circumstance.
However, their opinion is exactly that, their opinion. It contains no truth for you. This is why I don’t give advice to my students. I only reflect to them what they are thinking and offer them an insight into the mechanical nature of their energy self, which is their alpha state. Advice is always someone else’s path, someone else’s journey.
[0:12:47.9] All right, like I said, I want to get into when to use fortitude and when to exercise faith. Obviously, there are several options in how to proceed and I am certain each of you has a different way you’ve learned to compensate for not listening to your inner authority and using your mind as a decision maker. I am not saying that to be condescending.
I am just saying that because I am a person, I’m a coach who has worked with thousands of students, each of them conditioned to use their minds to make decisions and engage with their full stories around the question, “Who am I?” Here it is brothers, the lesson of the episode and the lesson is this, use fortitude to obtain what your inner authority has moved you towards and exercise faith is the universe provides a sign to the contrary.
I’ll use my current predicament as an example. You see, like I said to you before this community has not been built. There is no physical property that I have any connection to or story about. All I have is a map, all I have is a piece of paper and upon looking at the map, certain lots jumped out of me. In my body, in my energy body when I looked at the map I feel nothing about any of the lots except these two, how can that be?
How can that be, brother? This is a piece of paper with some lines and some colors on it and yet, when I elevate my alpha state, I feel an instinctual yes around these two squares on this piece of paper and nothing around any other part of this paper. Now, I have been on the land in the jungle. I’ve been to the place where the community is being built and I feel amazing there as well.
It is only these two lots for reasons I cannot explain, I mean, I can explain it because it is my energy mechanics but I can’t explain the mechanic. It is purely intuition, for these reasons that I have this pull and energetic yes coming from my inner authority.
[0:14:38.4] I don’t feel that way about any other lot in the community, so what did I do? Here’s what I did, first, I use fortitude. Look, my inner authority is telling me that these are the two lots for me. My broker and the developer trying to offer me other lots and it isn’t working for me. It is just not working, I am just not feeling anything around any other lots on this piece of paper, which is wild, right?
It’s a piece of paper. These two lots give me this inner yes, this voice within me that says yes. Everything else, nothing. If I used my mind to make a decision maybe it would be okay with the other lots. Maybe I’d be like, “Okay, fine. These two would work. These two over here would be fine, you know, whatever.” Maybe I’d be okay with one lot instead of two or two in another location of the community.
However, I have learned not to make decisions with my mind and I have learned to listen to my inner voice, my intuition so I will use fortitude to get these two lots and only these two lots and I will not take no for an answer. Now, some of you might believe that fortitude means just stick with it, gut it out no matter what. If you follow that line of thinking, fortitude could mean taking another lot.
I want to live in this community, I want to live Tulum, these two lots aren’t available. One of them is and the other one is reserved by someone, if you remember the story but together combined, they’re not available so to engage fortitude means to push through, right? Just push through, just choose different lots and get into the community.
All the thoughts I mentioned in the beginning of the podcast, right? Don’t give up, keep fighting, get into the community, the struggle will be worth it. It doesn’t matter if it’s what you want, don’t let anybody tell you to stop, right? Don’t let anybody stop you. In some ways, it might be considered a compromise. It isn’t the two lots I want but it keeps me in the community so I’ll take it.
[0:16:20.2] It is like if a little barrier gets in the way, should you just quit? Of course not, right? Don’t quit, keep fighting. Go around the barrier, adapt and overcome, take the lots as an adaptation and overcome by getting into the community in another way. I’m certain all of you can resonate this in some way. You have something you want, a plan, a goal, an outcome.
Then something gets in the way, a barrier to your plan, a barrier to your goal. What do you do? Do you quit or do you force your way through and how do you know which decision to make? My alpha state alerted me to specific locations within this community. This cannot be compromised. My inner authority told me which lots were correct for me.
I don’t know why, I don’t know for what reason. I didn’t see how big they were or how much they cost before I knew they were the right lots for me. Brothers, when I grabbed the piece of paper, when I grabbed this piece of paper with a map on it, I knew looking at these two lots. I didn’t know how big they were, I didn’t know how much they cost.
It was just like, “Yep, those are the two, right there.” I just knew I had the inner voice tell me these were the two so I used fortitude to push back against the circumstance. I start with the fight, the struggle will be worth it. Remember, this is only a test. I am going to push back to assert my inner knowing, to assert my inner authority.
[0:17:36.8] So I fired my broker and I asked the developer if he would go back to the person who had reserved the lot 76, you know the one that was available when I first put my deposit down but is now reserved and I asked the developer if they would go back and ask the buyer, the guy who reserved 76 if they would consider a different lot.
Now, if they do, this is a request of mine, right? Just go — whoever reserved 76 ask them if they would consider a different lot. There is somebody else who wants this lot and if they’re going to back out if they’re going to buy something else. Now it’s a request. Of course, they don’t have to. They can say no. If they do, then I will proceed as planned with the two lots I originally wanted, right?
If they decided that they are going to go with something else. If they don’t, then we move on to something else, right? Because this is fortitude, I will push to get what I know is right for me but here’s the thing, if the person who reserved the lot 76 doesn’t want to change and wants to keep this lot, then brothers I get my deposit back and I pull out of this community.
This is when I engage with faith. Look brothers, just because my inner authority pulled me towards these two lots does not mean I can override the circumstance. I cannot override the present. I cannot override the universe. If I am not meant to own these two lots then I am not meant to own these two lots. In faith, I pull out of the community and know that there is something better coming to me in the future. Something that is even more correct for me than this place and here is what I want to offer that you take from this podcast.
[0:18:58.3] When you know something is right for you, use fortitude to get it. Don’t quit, don’t give up. When the universe is giving you a sign that you won’t get what you want, don’t compromise. Let it go and through faith, know that the universe has something better lined up for you. Like I said, I know you all have a goal. I know you all have a plan.
I know you all have something you’re working on, something that you want, keep working toward it if it’s coming from your inner authority. If the universe puts a barrier in front of you, keep working toward it unless that barrier makes it impossible to get through, in which case, that’s a message.
Now, all of this follows cognitive mastery and requires you to be aligned with your energy mechanics because of what I just said because otherwise, you may be simply engaging with a story. Brothers, 99.999999 I don’t even know how many nines I can go out percent of the time, what you want is a story based on what you’ve been conditioned to believe will make you happy or free or loved or whatever.
It is not the thing you want. It’s the way you think the thing is going to make you feel. This is the beta condition, remember? The thing doesn’t make you feel anything, only the energy mechanics coming from your alpha state or the thoughts coming from your beta condition. These are the only things that create feelings so you have to know you’re living through your alpha state in order to use fortitude or engage faith.
Otherwise, it’s all in illusion. It is all a story. It is all coming from your beta condition. Now brothers, check this out, I will keep you posted on what is happening for me in Mexico and here is a hidden lesson in this podcast episode. It is not in the title and you had to get to the end to hear it. Those of you that are still listening you get something special here and this is it:
[0:20:47.1] Whether or not I get these lots, it doesn’t matter, either outcome is equal. Either outcome is neutral. Either outcome is unimportant because at this moment neither outcome exists and both outcomes exists. They are in the future, they are not here in the moment. They are a construct of mind only, outcomes do not matter my friend.
An alpha lives by acting not by thinking about acting or by thinking about what he will think after he has finished acting. The movement, the doing is not important. The movement, the doing and the outcome of the movement and the doing are not important. It is the presence, it is the being. We are human beings and an alpha knows that none of it matters.
It is all neutral. Our purpose is to learn. It is to be. In 100 years we will all be gone and nothing we do will have mattered and you might think that your actions mattered and that is only because you are thinking. We all have been conditioned to believe that our actions and outcomes and the actions and outcomes of others are important. This is vanity, all is one.
[0:21:59.2] That is all I have for you today brothers. Thank you so much for listening to my story and allowing me to get a little personal with you guys. I don’t talk about myself much on this podcast because it is in my mechanics to be more interested in other humans. That is a part of my energy mechanics.
However, I thought that this was a great example for all of you because I know that so many of you run into barriers like this, sometimes on a daily basis. You all have a goal, you all have a plan, you all have something that you are working towards, you all have this idea for your future and when barriers arrive, when obstacles unfold in front of you, you have the option.
Do I continue to press forward or do I let go and change course. And how do you know? You know by following your mechanical strategy by listening to your inner authority, by using your mind to engage with stories that serve you and draw you towards the circumstances of your future. And always, always have faith that the universe will provide for you. Brother, when you are ready to accelerate your cognitive mastery development and begin to learn how to operate with your perfect mechanical energy, head to thealphamalecoach.com. Fill out the form for the academy and book a call with me to get started. Remember brother, you are an alpha. You are an energy being having a human experience. Elevate your alpha.
[END OF DISCUSSION]
[0:23:30.4] ANNOUNCER: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Alpha Male Coach Podcast. If you enjoyed what you’ve heard and want even more, sign up for Unleash your Alpha: Your guide to shifting to the alpha mindset, at the alphamalecoach.com/unleash.
[END]
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