TheBroCode Rule #11: Bros are honor-bound to help another bro who’s moving or doing DIY repairs. Said bro is responsible to order food and beer for the help of his bros.

Men today need a wake up call. We’re softer than ever and raising a generation of young men without the right values, ideas, or tools to be strong men. When you think of strong wills, strength, mental toughness, resilience, intelligence, and values, there are few that even come to close to those of Spartan Warriors. So let’s take a look at how they train their boys, the mindset, and values of real warriors and figure out how to incorporate that into our own lives.

How did Spartans become so awe-inspiring? One factor was the Agoge, the Greek educational/training system that used harsh and extreme methods to prepare boys to be Spartan citizens.

The soldierly virtues include: Strength, Endurance, Solidarity

Let’s start with some background/context:

At age 7, Spartan boys were turned over to the state by their parents, they were organized in factions that lived, trained, and studied together. The boys that showed great judgement and courage would be deemed the leaders of these factions. The other boys would obey the leaders orders, keep eyes on him, and submit to his punishments. Even boy-led training was a practice of obedience.

To toughen them up even more, Spartan boys would go barefoot, rarely bathed or used ointments, so their skin could dry and harden. For clothes, they were give on cloak to wear all year so they could learn to endure heat/cold, and even made beds from plants they had to rip from the ground themselves from rivers nearby, as part of the faction lifestyle.

They exercised plenty, were fed meager diets, constantly trained in foot races, wrestling, and brutal sports. The boys were fed small diets to keep them hungry as a way of keeping them lean in what the Spartan system believed would help them grow taller. It also was meant to make the boys more resourceful, by fighting others for food, stealing food from gardens, doing what they needed to eat. However, if they got caught stealing, they were whipped in punishment, not so much for stealing, but for not being cunning enough that they got caught.

Whipping was a test of courage. Some boys looked forward to it as they could publicly display their fortitude.

Spartans stand tall, in steady formation, wearing a scarlet tunic and cape, which came from the idea that red was chosen as the color to hide blood better and allow you to conceal wounds, a weakness, from enemies.

There is power in appearance. There is also power in the fear of god.

From an early age, Spartan boys were filled with the fear of gods so powerful that it’s the base and foundation of Spartan morale. Some called it superstition, but it could also be called humility. Rituals of sacrifice, religious festivals, oracles, omens, it was all done to respect the fact that some things in life are written. They are left to a higher power and cannot be controlled, the forces of fate you may say. (This is lacking in modern day society. Youth in general but men need to have a belief system that revolves around gods and spirituality rather than technology, this is why men are lacking values and purpose today. In the darkest hours of a man’s life, the only thing that I’ve grown to understand is that a belief in a higher power is the light that will help guide you out of the scariest moments in life).

Spartans focused on endurance like no other. More important than agility, cleverness, and speed, were fortitude, stamina, and grit - mental toughness. Stand your ground and grind it out. This is another lesson that we can takeaway.

Spartans also taught, what is called, Laconic. The principle that “less is more” which governed how they spoke. Men of a few words who learned the ideal way to communicate is to speak only when one had something important to say, and then only in short bursts. (We see this in business today, among the greatest minds, leaders, and male role models. We need to learn how to be better in this way but also to teach it to those younger than us that don’t have the ideologies or mentors in their life to guide them)

For the Spartans, courage was not a vulnerable, transitory state of mind, it was the product of preparation and practice. They didn’t respect the solider who fought in rage, believing the loud obnoxious behavior was used to hide one’s fear and lack of self-composure. Instead, they embodied the ethos of “the quiet professional” who simply sets out to do his job,(you see this in guys like Lebron or Kobe) and lives the classic motto voiced by coaches like Vince Lombardi: “Act like you’ve been there before.”

The courage of the Spartans was not born of feeling, but discipline.

We need to take a step back and figure out how to incorporate these much of these traits of elite men and warriors into our world today. In a world where men are getting softer, losing their values, chasing girls, playing games without life purpose, and everything in-between…this is not what we were born to do, and we need to figure out how to apply these roots back into our lives, and if not our lives, the lives of the young men building the future.

Talent Stacking

All the online ‘gurus’ that preach about spending all your time become great are one thing is not the only option, and most never become great. Think about pro sports or Olympic athletes. Being the BEST at one thing is almost impossible.

However, being good or great at different skills, makes you more versatile, allows you to try and learn different skills, figure out what you like, but also makes you a great entrepreneur who’s able to do a lot of different things to bootstrap and get off the ground.

Look at guys like Ice Cube, a decent rapper not the greatest, decent actor, not the best, producer, writer, director, founder of the Big3 league.

You see this in guys like Ryan Reynolds, Snoop Dogg, and others Not everyone is gonna be the next Michael Jordan or Kobe or Brady at what they do, and that’s fine. It’s not always about being the BEST. You can reach similar levels of success by just having more skills, being exposed to more things, and being good at a lot of things. I find this side a lot more fulfilling.