Let's talk about the 3 main ways men destroy their lives.

​

I grew up in the projects and spent my 20s partying and wasting my life. Other than my amateur boxing career, I didn't have much going for me, and I came dangerously close to falling victim to all of these—and I've seen many men who grew up around me, both friends and relatives, fall victim to at least one of these and quite a few, to all three.

And look, unless you end up doing life in prison or you catch a sex charge with some kids, no life is beyond redemption. You can come back from anything. But if you make any of these mistakes, your life will be nearly impossible to repair.

This isn't just for young people reading, either. Old heads have to avoid these things, too. It just so happens that when you're young, you're stupid and think you're invincible, so you're way more likely to mess up.

And when you mess up young in certain ways—especially these ways—the negative results compound. Life comes at you fast—especially if you do any of these three things, including the bonus one I got for you at the end.

Mistake 1: Getting Into The wrong relationship

The easiest way to ruin your life is by getting with the wrong woman, and the only way you end up with the wrong woman is because you're thinking with your penis.

When the face is pretty, the body is right, and the sex game is tight, you'll look at a woman through rose-colored glasses. The problem with rose-colored glasses is that they make all the red flags look normal.

The wrong relationship can also get you behind bars in several ways. First, there's the first way that probably immediately came to mind: when a devious chick will call the police on you and say that you put your hands on her, but you didn't do anything except maybe raise your voice.

Then there's the other way. You *actually* hit her. And it doesn't matter if it's in self-defense or a fit of rage. You're going to jail, and you won't have anyone to blame for yourself.

Look man, I get it. Once I dated a woman who was so obnoxious and disrespectful she actually made me, who is normally calm and stoic—almost to the point of passivity—think about hitting her.

I remember standing there, and it was like the angel and devil on my shoulders, the way they do in those old cartoons. The angel was like, "Please don't be so damn stupid. This will ruin your life," and the devil was like, "Yo, if you steal off on her right now, you'll feel so much better." Fortunately, I was afraid of prison, and she was only about 5'3", so I walked it off.

And why was I with her in the first place? Well, I wasn't worth shit, and she was badass Brazilian with a thin waist, a pretty face, and a big behind. But she was psycho, and I only ended up with her because, being the not-shit human that I was, I started hooking up with her when she was dating a homie. I'm not proud of that at all, but I was 22, and I didn't grow up with any sense of role models or loyalty, so I did some low-down shit.

By the way, I got lucky. If you hook up with the wrong dude's girl, you won’t have a life to fix anymore. Or, at the very least, the way you have to fix it will be *way* beyond any article and left to the hands of modern medicine.

If you have trouble reading people and picking the best humans to hang out with—romantically or platonically—check out my Stoic Street Smarts Blueprint. ​

In that email course, I use my experience growing up in the hood, boxing, getting sober, and ultimately fixing my life to teach you how to manage risk, build relationships, and face reality.

It’s two lessons delivered to your inbox weekly, and we correspond via email if you want to so I can give you tailored solutions and feedback.

​Click here to learn more.​

Now, back to the message.

If you’re careless enough to knock a girl like this up, the worst types will use your kids against you in a court of law, like a witness for the prosecution, getting them to lie and say all kinds of wild mess to cause you to lose custody. And that’s assuming she wants custody or is a good mother in the first place.

Some women treat their children like expensive jewelry: Cute to show off but not worth all the money required and not necessary for the whole outfit. If you have children with a woman who either lacks the ability or desire to be a mother, you’ll find yourself—at best—as effectively a single dad and, at worst—taking care of two children: the one you produced and the one you couldn’t resist because she came in the body of an adult.

In either situation, it will be hard to improve your life because of the financial pressure and emotional strain. Either the courts will take your money by force, or you’ll be forced to pay for everything. If you got it like that, cool, but if you do, this part of the message isn’t really for you anyway.

And we haven’t even talked about what divorce hell is like. I know a cat who had to pay fifteen grand a month in alimony and child support combined. Even if you got it like that, imagine having to pay your ex, who is a piece of dirt anyway? And if you ain’t got it like that, you’ll be in a bad financial position for the rest of your days.

If you aren’t in that deep with her, the wrong woman can get other men to try and hurt you. Remember the story about Travis Rudolph, the NFL wide receiver whose girlfriend—in a fit of jealousy—called her brother and his friends to shoot him?

Fortunately, Travis had his brother around, and they were carrying guns, but it could have easily turned out bad for Travis. The crazy thing about the Travis Rudolph story is that the dude was raised in a solid two-parent household with stable role models and still got caught up. That’s how powerful the sex drive of a young man can be.

To make a sad story short, Travis ended up killing one of the dudes. That’s terrible, but it’s always better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6. On that note, don’t get arrested.

Mistake 2: Getting a Criminal Record

​

Having a criminal record makes it nearly impossible to do anything to improve your life. Yes, you can find a job, but it’s a hell of a lot easier to find one if you don’t have to worry about failing a criminal background check.

If you ever want to go back to school, many schools won’t accept someone with a criminal record, and for those that do, getting financial aid will be impossible except for the most innocent of crimes and only after some time has passed—time you don’t have.

You can do manual labor or try to get into the trades, but some jobs won’t let you on. If you want to see the world, some countries won’t ever let you visit OR if they allow you, the hoops you’ll have to go through will make you say to hell with it.

I remember my first time driving with my then girlfriend and now wife into Canada and feeling a huge sigh of relief that I got my shit together before I got a DUI or worse—because Lord knows I drove drunk more than enough times to have seriously ruined my life. I just got lucky.

On that note, drinking and driving is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, but I was a full-blown alcoholic. Fortunately, I got sober—it’ll be 11 years this December—and the one thing you have to remember is that when you drink and drive, you have to keep getting lucky. Law enforcement only has to get lucky once to ruin your life.

Getting a criminal record ruins your earning potential ALMOST as much as a bad divorce and child support, but getting screwed by divorce and family court is only a figure of speech.

In jail, you might have to fend off a few booty bandits. I know what you’re saying: “That ain’t ever gonna happen to me. A man gonna have to kill me before he takes my manhood.”

Or my favorite is when dudes come out talking about “jail ain’t even like that. They just put that shit in the movies.”

I’d say that too if I ain’t want anyone to think I got my cheeks busted or I was doing the cheek busting, but here’s a quick stat for you. In a survey of a Nebreska Prison, 22%—a little more than 1 in 5 of inmates said they’d been forced to do something sexual.

For simple math, let's assume it’s not a gang bang. That means over 40% of dudes who served time were either playing that tune or were forced to sing along—and those were the guys who admitted it! The number is probably much higher.

It reminds me of an old Chris Rock joke where he says, “The Spice Girls sold 10 million albums, but I can’t find anyone who admits to buying one.” This brings me to the final mistake.

Mistake 3: Drugs and alcohol

The easiest way to make sure you never have to see the inside of a prison and risk being someone’s bottom is to avoid drugs and alcohol. I know a lot of cats are gonna push back about the booze, but as someone who is coming up on 12 years sober this December, I can tell you with 100% certainty that life is better when you don’t drink.

You completely eliminate the possibility of getting into a drunken fight, getting a DUI, misinterpreting consent signals, or just doing anything stupid that you know is a bad idea.

If you’re a young cat under 25, I know this one sounds like a tall order because everyone is drinking. It seems like that’s the only way to socialize and meet women, but trust me when I tell you this—if you start doing things to be interesting, have the courage to stand your ground, and develop real social skills instead of liquid courage, not only will you meet more women, you’ll meet higher quality women.

I lost a lot of girls being a drunk asshole, but I never lost a girl because I was sober and in control. With that out of the way, lemme talk about the drugs thing right quick.

Aside from drugs being something that will get you put in jail and make you more likely to become some dude's sissy, there’s also the issue of the type of people you interact with when you’re in the habit of procuring hard drugs.

You don’t buy coke, rock, ice, smack, or dust from a dispensary. You usually buy it in a place where you’re likely to get either arrested, robbed or murdered because you wore the wrong colors.

And honestly, those are arguably better outcomes than what happens to your life if you start chasing the dragon. My issues were with alcohol, and they almost cost me friends and freedom, but I was lucky that I was able to kick the habit before the habit kicked me.

I have an uncle who died from a fentanyl overdose, but before he kicked it, he had turned into a hardcore bum. I’d run into him 5 years before, but I didn’t recognize him because the streets are no joke—and they’re even less funny when they've got your soul tied up like a tourniquet on a junkie’s arm.

Bonus Mistake To Avoid

Don’t take out excessive consumer debt. It’s not the uphill battle that the other three are, but it’s damn tough to dig yourself out of while trying to get ahead in life. I grew up poor as hell in the projects and had to learn, the hard way, how things like credit card interest work.

This will be obvious and well-known to most of you, but bear with me. When you use your credit card to pay something back if you don’t pay your balance in full before the next billing cycle, you’re gonna be charged interest on the balance, So now you gotta pay back what you spent, plus the juice or the vig, or whatever word you use to for the idea.

​
Like I said earlier, if you make these mistakes, you can overcome them. You can get your life back on track. If that’s you, then this video here, where I talk about the real way to do self-improvement, will help.

​

​
​
​
​
​