Building your War Chest (Intro): 365 days to £100K - understanding the dynamics of humans and how to become a MAN.
Builders, observers and innovators and all that grey stuff in between.
As I write these letters of love to my son, I realise that I am indirectly writing him instructions on how to ‘become’ a man. In this day and age with all the single parenting - over 2 million single parents (UK) - finding the balance of being both mother and father - or masculine and feminine energy - is a trial by fire, for most of us nowadays. The disenfranchisement of the dual-parent household has a deep-rooted effect on the kids we develop today - do not even bother to argue against this case. So, having both parents in one household is in itself is a privilege and luxury.
As a solo father, who grew up with both parents until the age of 12-13 I can wholeheartedly say this because I know my place. I know the handicap I am faced with, and more so, that the handicap is not internal know-how - I have always been a very hands-on parent - it is the energy that I received externally. Women (including my mother and aunties) would tell me that being nurturing doesn’t come naturally to me because I am a man and blah blah blah, I zone out - but, that was more of a ‘struggle’ for me.
Now… I want to set this straight… ‘Becoming’ a man and ‘Being’ a man are two separate things. One is a journey and the other is a mental state.
1: Becoming a man is a journey of trials and tribulations. There is a discovery phase that one day you are no longer seen as a boy - who is a child, who has instant value and granted grace to make mistakes - you’re an adult male and everything you do will be scrutinised and your value of just ‘existing’ is ripped away. If you are raised without a ‘man’ in your environment, becoming a ‘man’ is twice as hard, maybe even trice. You have no demonstrations of what the basic foundations are. But ‘Being’ a man - at base level - is easy, it is actually very simple. All one has to do to build strong foundations is:
Lift things
Hit things
Push things
Pull things
Observe things
Break things
Fix things
Write things
Read things
Love things
And delay gratification.
Practising these things will create self-awareness - I speak about self-awareness in this post here: Fear no man because man are not Gods but I fear me - you will understand what you can and cannot lift - your limits. You will understand how destroying things have cause and effect. You will pay more attention to how things move and operate - observing their ways. Your mind will tick, you will think, you will want to express these thoughts in a multitude of ways - writing or drawing, and you want to read things to structure the chaos in your mind to create ‘order’ and ‘peace’. The push and pulling of things build strength and creates testosterone - testosterone develops boldness, a young boy will become more brave. The final key to mastering the basics of becoming a man is to exercise delayed gratification - going to the gym works great for this by the way.
Instant gratification is a drug, it becomes addictive, like getting likes on your pictures on Instagram or RTs on Twitter, if not controlled it will lead you away from your core - you want that shot of dopamine now - and you will do every dance in the book to entertain anyone for a taste of applause. In fact, instant gratification that is not reinforced with real emotional support - from parents - on the things that truly matter - that a child does - can create a form of narcissism - this is oversimplified and I am not a psychologist to explore. But according to any reputable psychologists studies they say that ‘narcissists are created, they are not born.
Do the basics above and you will well on your way to becoming a man. If you are a man-child, adult male lost then you’ll have to provide your ownself grace and develop moments of ‘controlled chaos - I will explain this in another post.
Looking back at some of my previous posts, I realised that I have had my trials from a very ‘young’ age. I was 13 and developed some type of stoic mentality - a stoic is a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining. Some may say this was too early but I thank the heavens every day for what I went through as it helped build the mentality I have today. Read Maybe, no maybes, you can’t break a broken heart you see.. for a deeper insight to me.
I digress… The average age a boy turns into a man, in the UK, is legally 18. But in the eyes of the social/community perspective 21, around the age of 21 parents really start to rip off the bandaid. You are out of full-time education. You now need a job - to earn your keep, and all they seem to be seeing you do is play video games and be ‘lazy’. In my opinion, the age of 21 is far too late. By the age of 21, a culture of excuses of “boys will be boys” or “he is only young, he will find his way” mixed with the protection of mummy’s excuses as to why her little boy should remain ‘safe’, really sets into his core - I will address the son/mother dynamic in another post and what type of character it may or may not make.
You’re now a Frankenstein. A ‘man-child’ that is confused about the way the world is now interacting with him. You no longer have value until you create value, and this is why a lot of man-children throw tantrums and break down mentally because they weren’t prepared for this state. In fact, if you are the ‘average’ man that has always got his way, life was pretty safe, and you could achieve all that you wanted without any real problem-solving requirements, the day you face real problems is the same day your reality starts to break. And trust me, I have seen the fall of many and that fall is long and hard.
2: Being a man is simple. Like the list I stated above, all a man is required to do is the following things - built upon the foundational stage:
Support
Protect
Provide
Feed
Lead.
That’s it! A man at the core is a builder. I am not just talking about manual labour, I am talking in all senses. Mind, Body, and Soul. It is his job to create protection and support in the physical realm but before a man becomes a man he has to build his mental state - I will explore this in another post.
Now… Human dynamics:
‘Human Dynamics is a body of knowledge that identifies and describes previously unrecognized inner differences in people. These inner differences affect the ways in which people think, plan and learn; experience emotions; communicate and relate with others, and go about engaging in activities and projects.”
A man that observes can take complex information and simplify them - but do not ever make the mistake of forgetting the depths and nuances of all things…
In this world, to simplify things, there are three types of people, I say this in my old posts and the types of people always change lol. This time the three types are:
Builders - Doers.
Innovators - Planners.
Observers - Watchers.
Within these three types of people, there are hybrids - places of grey. Doers who plan, Planner who do and Watchers who watch lol. But let’s start with the basics.
Planners can plan then watch but require a doer to do the plan they have planned to come alive. The planner in this case has the authority to comment and tweak how the doers execute the plan - they created the methodology and vision by the end of the day.
Doers do - build - but can plan at a standard level. They have seen enough plans before that they can take their learnings of doing what they were told to do before -for themselves. In fact, a lot of doers can plan but prefer to build and this stunts their growth to innovate - this is a post of a later date.
And then they are watchers - observers. Watchers just observe, they watch and observe the builders and innovators create. These people are normally the critics, the naysayers, the ones waiting for you to fail so they can correct you and feel like they are a part of the creation process because deep down they lack confidence in both their doing and planning ability.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt.
Remember - those who are doing more than you will never criticise you and that in turn show where your ears and eyes need to be.
A lot of watchers are taught how to use what the builders and/or innovators have created. These people are not tactical level but operational level - this is middle management.
Middle management is like the middle-class, when you dig deep enough into the value they add it is minimal but they have the loudest of voices. In terms of democracy, the middle class - in humans and SMEs - are taxed and abused heavily. Being in the middle of any situation is incredible crap. They are always two paycheques away from being broke, overly penalised, trapped by policies and highly stressed from their day to day working life - for having an ‘average’ skill or constantly overlooked because they are zombies - like hamsters on the wheel, keeping society in a maintenance mode.
Now… When you are building a company from zero to one, middle managers suck - the watchers. They puff their chest and talk about their experiences and meaningless achievements but never have started something, nurtured something, create a framework around something, and get the execution done. This means that watchers can not be a part of the building and/or innovation process because all they really do is play politics, act busy, aim for low hanging fruit and slow down the real work from getting done!
A watcher’s value becomes valuable when you’ve built the product, company and culture, and they just slot into the structure and keep the momentum going. This is great in terms of alleviating the ‘demand & capacity’ stress post- building and innovation, and how to scale a company efficiently. I speak harshly about the middle managers but I am only talking about the cocky ones - the ones who blow hot stream and can’t do a dam thing. But, there are middle managers and observers that say and do the right things and these things spark new innovations to get the problem done. These middle managers can keep the culture if the culture is set properly flowing on and on and on. They become angels and advocates and we need advocates and angels along this mission, and they do make the mission more fun.
Builders and innovators go wrong by not understanding where and when to hand over and/or allow the observers to champion them. This is because the builders and innovators were underestimated, told they weren’t able to do something, scrutinised but then after achieving the intended results, the same people (watchers) now celebrate the success of what just got done. This is the innovators and builders egos speaking, and if not exercised correctly, the ego destroys the biggest of kingdoms.
So how do you build... This is an underwhelming conclusion but one needs to have a plan, search the tools and learn how to use the tools to build, roll up their sleeves and get shit done - become a Planner- Doer. It’s that simple! But before you can really do any of this and build an opportunity for yourself, you will need to create a space of grace, you will need to build up your resources first - create your war chest!
YOUR WAR CHEST - A War Chest is a colloquial term for the reserves of cash set aside or built up by an entity/company to take advantage of an unexpected opportunity.
To become a man you have to HUNT and when you hunt you collect, and what you collect in overperformance, you store and what you store is your war chest. In this new world, money is what we hunt for, and building your war chest is what you need to get the real things done.
A man’s ability is ultimately judged by the intelligence of his HUNT and In this series of building your war chest, I am going to show you how to hunt 101.
Over the next couple of weeks, we will be hybrid doers and planners to get a 100K for 365 days on the hunt.
If you like these posts and/or have further questions, please do let me know.
You can follow me on:
Twitter: @BnBeckford
Instagram: @B.eckford
I am always here to help!
Thanks for reading!
The ‘war chest’ series will be broken down into the following:
Registering a business, Business Banking & Accountants - Preparing your war chest and council.
Your idea & raising startup funding (A business plan) - Understanding your landscape.
Prototyping your product (MVP) - Your Weapon
Planning your go-to-market strategy & the power of your brand marketing - Drawing first blood in battle.
Personas, knowing your customers & converting leads - learning your opponents.
Creating a Loyal Customer base & scaling your business (additional funding/venture financing) - Building your kingdom.
Hunting is fun, once you've taken the time to develop self-awareness, boldness and see the results come. Money after a certain point just becomes numbers on the board.
This is the intro to ‘Building your war chest’ and the journey is and will be a fun one. If you wish to pass on this to anyone that you believe would like to know how to build their war chest, please share this one.
For the numbers on the board? check out this post: Credit scores are so middle class, credit scores are for the 'poor'. It’s an interesting one!.
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