If there’s one book I would recommend that you read as a man, it’s this one right here. Hard Times Create Strong Men by Stefan Aarnio. This book is over 600 pages long and I read it in about a week because I couldn’t put it down. Stefan, unfortunately is no longer with us as I believe he passed away in 2020, due to Cancer, not the ‘rona. May he Rest In Peace, but I think this guy was an absolute genius in terms of how he breaks down being a man. Let me share with you 5 key takeaways from this book that can start making a difference in your life today. 

So Stefan Aarnio as I mentioned in the intro is no longer with us, but he left this amazing legacy behind in the form of this book and so many others that he’s written. He actually wrote this book in 11 days which is insane cuz it’s a hefty book. His inspiration for writing this book came from coming back to his business after being away for 30 days. He came back to the office and found his employees in disarray. People were showing up late, not doing their job and at the same time complaining and whining to him. A lot of his male employees said that they thought he was mean and not very nice, so because of that they were mot motivated to work, even though they were still getting paid.

So as a way to get to the root of the problem he met with each employee and discovered that all of them had the same underlying issue. Millennial men that were acting like boys and had never been given the how to be a man talk by their own fathers. They were whining and complaining about the job that they applied for and decided to work for. Using excuses like “I don’t like you and I think you’re mean so I’m not gonna do my job, but I still wanna work here and get paid.” Ugh, nah homie, that’s not really how this whole thing works.

Stefan decided to have these how to be a man conversations with his male employees and as a result the culture around the office changed for the better and the productivity level grew. Stefan couldn’t believe that literally all of these guys had never learned this and he said to himself I don’t wanna have this conversation ever again, so he wrote a book on it instead. Now if you do decide to pick up this book and read it like I did, I will warn you that it’s not for the easily offended. This book is like if your dad took you into the garage and said we need to have a talk away from mom and your sister. And gave you all the facts about being a man with no filter. So if you fall under that snowflake category, don’t read this book. 

But if you can look at things objectively and you’re committed to becoming a better man, not only for your family, but just for yourself, then read this book. You may not agree with everything Stefan says and that’s ok. Remember, it’s the sharing of ideas that allows for great conversations that foster growth to occur. 

# 1 - A Man’s Purpose Is His Work

Have you ever been working on something and you get into this state of mind where nothing else exists in that moment except you and your work? It used to happen to me a lot back when I used to rap. I would shut the door to my room, put on an instrumental, and start writing some lyrics. I would get lost in my work and would produce some of my greatest rhymes. You’ve probably experienced something similar in your line of work. You get caught up in the moment and you become the most productive version of yourself. Well, they have a name for this, they call it the Flow State.

A state of mind you get into that allows you to be a productive beast with no distractions. So the fact that this happens is interesting because it points to the idea that it’s by design. The Bible says that we were created for good works. Now maybe you don’t believe in God or the Bible and that’s fine, I’m not here trying to convert you. I’m just pointing out the fact that we’re built to work, especially men.

We are problem solvers and we work towards discovering solutions. Think of any big time entrepreneur, like Elon Musk for example. This man worked relentlessly to build the empire he’s built. Tesla and SpaceX are recognized companies now and he’s one of the wealthiest men in the world. All because he found his purpose in the work that he enjoys. 

And this is the key thing that Stefan points out in his book. It’s gotta be YOUR work because only then will you enjoy it and find purpose in it. We all have to work jobs we hate at one point or another. Yet, just because we hated those jobs, it doesn’t mean we sucked at them. We still did them to the best of our ability, we just didn’t enjoy it. And that’s the thing about work, is that whether you like it or not, it’s still work. It’s not play. You think Kobe Bryant wanted to run more drills and wake up early in the morning to get going. I doubt it, but that was his work. He wanted to become the best basketball player and in order to do that he put in the work every day.

Men that commit to their work are admired and women are drawn to them because these are the type of men that do what needs to be done to make sure their families are taken care of. Even if the work sucks, a real man realizes that it’s not about him, it’s about his family and those he serves and leads. If he strives to look for the work that he actually enjoys doing and builds that up, then he becomes even more true to his purpose. 

This is a quote from the book “A man understands that it isn’t about him, it never was about him, and it never will be about him. It’s about his group, his tribe, his family, his wife, and his kids—never about him. Leaders eat last. The world craves leadership from men who are willing to do the work and eat last.”

I don’t know about you but I find this statement to be pretty true, especially in my own life. It ain’t about me. Even this business and the work that I’m doing for this channel. It’s not about me, it’s about helping you so that you can have the best family experience possible. 

# 2 - Good Men Are Not Nice Men

When I was working for a tech company, my daily work consisted of teaching people how to use their computer or smartphone. There was this man that used to book up sessions all the time. He was there almost every day, a very nice man. No one really had any issues working with him as everyone described him as a very nice man. I taught this man for a number of years and he became proficient with his tech which as a teacher made me feel good about the work I was doing. One day I was coming into work and as I walked into the building I see a man being arrested by the cops. It was him, that very nice man that I had been teaching for years was caught shoplifting. They had videos upon videos of him putting things into his bag and stealing merchandise from our place of business every time he came and had a session with us. He would stuff things into his backpack whenever we were distracted and we never noticed or were suspicious of him because he was always so nice.

In contrast at that same business we had an MMA fighter that would frequent the store. I’ll stay away from names for privacy’s sake, but he was a well known UFC fighter. He was a beast in the octagon and when you saw him in real life he was definitely intimidating. And when he would walk in, he didn’t seem like the nicest guy. I had the privilege of helping him out one time and struck up just a general conversation, gave him some advice on some tech. He was grateful for the help and during my interaction with him I came to appreciate how generous and kind this man actually was. He may be a fighter and dangerous in his own right, but this man from what I could assess was a good man. He wasn’t what most people would consider a nice man, but definitely a good man. 

So what’s the difference G? Well, the difference is that nice and kind aren’t the same things. They don’t mean the same thing. Some men are nice, or they perform nice acts for the public, but inside are weak, corrupt and needy. There’s a reason why that phrase, “Nice guys finish last” rings true. The truth is no one wants to follow the nice guy. Women may think that guy is nice, maybe they’ll date him, but at the end of the day, they wanna end up with the kind guy. Why? Because the nice guy only acts nice to put on a show. The man who is kind and generous does so from a position of power. He chooses to be kind and generous, but do not mistake his kindness for weakness. For that same man can become a beast if necessary. Good men are dangerous men. 

The truth is if you were going down a dark alley and you could take either the nice man I mentioned in my story who was stealing from the store for years or the UFC fighter? Who would you want with you in that dark alley? You would take the UFC fighter every single time. What makes you think anybody else would choose different in that situation. When the stakes are high and there’s real danger involved, being politically correct goes out the window. And masculinity all of a sudden is not so toxic. Do you want John Wick or one of the guys from the Silicon Valley show? 

Think about it, why are we so drawn to characters like John Wick? You look at those movies, and he’s technically the good guy. You might argue that he’s a good man, just got dealt a bad hand. But when you really pull back the layers, the thing that draws you to that character is that he’s a badass assassin that can pretty much take anyone on. And even though he’s racking up body counts throughout his movies, you cheer him on and want to embody those skills. Because even though society tells you to be nice, you know that in order to do what John Wick can do, you can’t be nice.

Good men are not nice men, they are men that do what’s necessary to protect their families no matter what. I’m an easy going guy as I do my best to treat everyone with respect, but the second you attempt to bring harm to my family in any way, well I become a different man. And I would argue that you’re most likely the same way. Don’t strive to be nice a man, strive to be good man. 

# 3 - What Women Want

Man this topic is such a good one because it literally is a question that men have been trying to answer since the dawn of time. What do women want? Well in this section of the book, Stefan attempts to answer this question using an old story from the 1400s I believe.

I’m gonna paraphrase a bit, but the story goes like this. There was a knight traveling and encounters a beautiful woman. He decides to take the woman by force against her will. She reports him to the queen and he’s brought before the queen and they find him guilty. He pleads for a chance to be spared and the queen makes a deal with him and says, “I will give you a year’s time to find the answer to this question for me, what do women want? If in a years time you can bring me the answer, then you will be spared, otherwise you will be put to death.” So the knight spends the next year asking all over town, and everyone gives them their take. Money, power, etc... but none of the answers are what the queen is looking for. Then he encounters an old beggar witch who tells him that she knows the answer and she’ll give it to him, if he’ll marry her and make her his bride. He’s like, “Hell No!” I mean this witch looks like the one from wizard of Oz, all sorts of ugly, old and smelly. But his year is up and still no luck. So he agrees at the last moment to take the witch up on the deal, she gives him the answer. The knight goes before the queen, and he recites the answer to her. The queen is so impressed with the answer that she drops the charges and lets him free. However the witch in the crowd steps up and says, “Hey queen, I’m the one that gave this fool the answer and he promised to marry me in exchange.” The queen then asks the knight, “yo is this true,” he’s like, “yeah, it’s true.”

So they commence the wedding ceremony and the witch is in bed with the night ready to get down with the get down. But the Knight doesn’t want to because she looks like the witch from the wizard of oz, yet he still goes in for a kiss. Then she magically turns into a beautiful woman and they live happily ever after. Yeah I know, remember it’s an old story. But the only thing we wanna know from this story is what did the witch tell the knight? What’s the answer to the question? Well the answer is, that women want mastery over a man. Not just any man, a strong man.

Let’s dive into this one a little because I know you’re probably thinking, What the hell does that mean? Well it’s kinda simple actually, a woman’s ultimate want is to be able to control her man. But if she gets to fulfill that want and dominates you completely, she will not be happy and will move on to another man that she can’t control. 

Think about this dynamic for a second. Have you ever seen a man whose life revolves around his trophy wife. She says jump and he says how high? The woman is in complete control of him, she ultimately has what she wants, but she’s still not happy. This is the guy that ends up getting cheated on. Why? Well Stefan argues that it’s in the pursuit of that control that women are happy and satisfied. It’s not in the actual gaining of it. Try it for a time if you wanna experiment, do everything your woman asks you to do for like a week and I guarantee you that she will still not be happy.  But if you appease her with some things and don’t let her become your mom, she will definitely respect you and give you your place as the man. You see there’s this polarity that occurs between masculine and feminine energy. 

If you fulfill your masculine role within the relationship, your woman can dwell in her feminine role because she knows that she has you to provide that safety for her. It’s when men don’t fulfill that man role, that it causes women to become more masculine and step in. I don’t want my woman to be masculine, it’s her feminine side that attracts me. And she doesn’t want me to be feminine, it’s my masculine side that attracts her. I want her to call me over when she sees a spider in the bathroom and wants me to kill it. I may not be a fan of spiders either, but I don’t have an issue taking them out. If she hears a noise in the middle of the night, I go check it out, not her. I protect her and she knows that she can rely on me to do that. Do I piss her off sometimes? Absolutely! Does she love it when I do things that she wants to do? Of course she does! But she loves it even more when I do it out of my own volition, not her demands. 

The point of this is that if you give a woman full dominance over you, neither one of you will ever be happy or fulfilled in your relationship. So don’t allow that to happen.

# 4 - Decline Of Religion

There’s a section in the book where Stefan talks about the necessity of religion in a functioning society. Without it, we become cannibals with no moral standard to ground us. I don’t know how quickly we become cannibals, but I know for sure we become animals without morality to guide us. If we don’t have a standard that we all agree on for what is good and we’re all just making stuff up, then chaos occurs. Imagine if the entire U.S. population decided that they don’t wanna obey the laws of the land anymore. The laws that derive from the Judeo-Christian values that founded the country. Those values are important because it provides us a standard by which to live. It gives us purpose and fosters peace and when someone disturbs that peace, they are dealt with according to the laws that we’ve all decided to obey. 

Stefan states examples of history in which large empires like Rome began moving away from religion, it weakened the society and gave way for barbarians to invade and take over. In our own country right now, we see the decline of our religion. Now I’m not arguing religions, whether you’re a Christian, Catholic, Muslim, or Jew, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that all of these beliefs are being challenged and replaced with things that have no moral value. You see even though all of these religions differ in practice and doctrine, there are core aspects that correspond to almost all of them. Like the the act of lying, cheating, stealing and killing, all of these things we can agree on are morally wrong. And these beliefs hold us to a higher standard of living and cause us to have individual responsibility and accountability to do what’s right. Yet in our society, we see fabricated stories and news all the time. Corrupt government officials that lie, steal and cheat and they’re the ones making the laws. 

This country is definitely not perfect and we haven’t done the greatest job of adhering to morally grounded laws, but there was a time when it was ok to pray in public schools. When science class would offer you the Big Bang theory and the intelligent design argument. They would present the arguments and let you choose what you wanted to believe. Now you won’t hear that in schools. It’s taken as offensive if you pray in schools now or if you tell someone Merry Christmas. They’ve eliminated God and religion from public discourse. This alone has weakened our families greatly as it’s caused division due to not having the same set of core beliefs. When families get weak, society gets weak, and when society gets weak, the entire nation gets weak. 

The decline of religion has also caused a disconnect with God. Some people refer to him as the universe, higher power, or infinite intelligence, whatever you subscribe to, the point is, believing in something greater than you gives you purpose. That kind of faith inspires and causes people to act. People will go to war or die to defend their faith, but they won’t do the same to defend their iPhone. Just something to think about, is religion really such a bad thing?

# 5 - 80 Year Cycle

This is a constant theme in the hard times book. Stefan talks about how every 80 years there’s a dynamic cycle that occurs and has been seen to occur throughout history. The entire book is based off a poem:

“Hard Times Create Strong Men,

Strong Men Create Good Times,

Good Times Create Weak Men,

Weak Men Create Hard Times”

And all of these things happen in 20 year increments. 

Let’s go back 80 years from today and we’re in the 1940s, World War 2. We win the war after just a decade ago going through the Great Depression. Some really hard times and out of that war came home some young 20 year olds that had seen evil in its most truest form. These guys became the strong men of that time and gave way to the 60s through 80s. We have strong men like Martin Luther King Jr, civil rights movements. Things change in our society for the better brings forth good times. People are thriving, affordable housing, now we get to the 80s to 2000s and we have good times cultivating weak men. Values and morals are challenged, riots, and the rise of the internet and all forms of instant gratification. Gaming consoles, computers, huge technological leaps and a culture shift with the birth of the millennial generation. Then we got the 2000s to now, weak men create hard times. We’ve had recessions, terrorist attacks, record high unemployment, record high housing costs, extreme political division, a pandemic, higher divorce rates, fatherless homes and people getting canceled over differing view points.

According to this 80 year cycle, we’re about to enter the hard times part at least here in the U.S. And judging by how things are starting off in 2021 already, this may be true. Now I’m not here to argue whether Stefan is right or wrong on this. But you gotta admit that when you step back and look at 80 year history blocks of time, they may fit this mold in some ways.

Now some of you may be saying if this is really true, then it’s not fair and it’s not right! And you’re absolutely right, if we’re stuck in some preordained cycle like this, then what’s the point? Well the point is that history is a great teacher and if we look back at what brought forth hard times, it was weak men. If you aware of this fact, then you can do something about it. In order to break the cycle we must become strong men starting in our own household. If we can fortify our families through strong leadership, then the next generation can be set up to be strong as well. 

I know we’ve covered a lot and like I said this book is literally 600 pages long, so there’s a lot to unpack here. So I definitely encourage you to check out this book and read it with an open mind. Don’t judge it right away even if he says something that slightly offends you. In my opinion, it’s always great to discuss opposing ideas because even if you may not agree, you still grow from the experience. As an Alpha Dad you have to be willing to grow constantly as a man and strive to become greater each and every day. You’re never stagnant. 

Until next time my fellow Alpha Dad,

• G. Vidal