CHAPTER TWO — THE MENTORS
PART THREE — YOU ARE A LION
At the beginning of our start-up ventures, Kellan introduced me to a strong man and ‘gym junkie’, by the name of @ElliottHulse.
My first impression of seeing this angry philosophical giant on YouTube changed my life forever.
We huddled around my laptop screen and watched one of his videos entitled “How To Become a LION Amongst Sheep”.
In this video Elliott, who is a New Age gym philosopher and strongman, retells the story of “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” by Friedrich Nietzsche.
Men need to become lions, he explained.
As a baby we are brought up to become a camel, to have burdens thrown upon us, to be told what to do, when to do it; we are told that we should do this, shouldn’t do that; we can do this, we can’t do that. We drudge around life like a camel with more and more burdens thrown upon us. Very few men make it past the camel stage in life, most men die there without even realising it.
A few men however, drop the burdens and stand up for themselves.
When they do, they are faced with dragons. These dragons stop them from doing what they are meant to do in life. These dragons can be family, the media, friends or more likely our own internal inner conflicts. It is our duty as men to follow our heart, and slay our dragons and become the lion. As a lion you live the way you are meant to live. You learn and grow. You gain wisdom and you add value. When you become a lion you are no longer a clone or a cog in a machine, you are an entirely new machine, adding value to all that have the benefit of enjoying your purpose. As the lion ages, his knowledge is passed onto generations; however a real lion knows that future generations will have to learn and find out their own purpose for themselves.
The video wouldn’t be more than 15 minutes, but in those 15 minutes I felt my entire being shake to its core. Something was happening within me that made me resonate with what Elliott was saying. I wasn’t awakened at that point, but I was certainly not asleep anymore.
I had realised then and there, why my life situation was starting to play out the way it was; where it was going and what I needed to do. I knew I had to begin my journey, even though I didn’t know what that meant.
