Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Warrior Kings podcast. I'm your host, Michael Riggs, here to assist you on your journey to living a fully optimized, leveled up life as a man. So again, welcome. Welcome to the Warrior Kings podcast. It's good to have you here today, if it's your first time here. My name is Michael Riggs. I'm a full time author, artist and entrepreneur, husband and father of five, and I say all of the things that most men don't want to hear when it comes to living a fully optimized, leveled up life. So if that's not your thing, definitely don't subscribe to this podcast or this channel. Just get out of here. But hey, hey, if it is, if that's your thing, if you want to level up every aspect of your life as a man, that's what we do here every week. So yeah, welcome to the team. Today we're going to be talking about the primal and embracing the innate, primal, wild self as a man. That primal, wild warrior spirit that lives within us all as men. And this is a new mini series on the podcast that I'm starting. And it's based on my book, warrior unlocking masculinity, manliness and the warrior spirit within. And on this new series, we're going to be basing the episodes off of each chapter of that book. The book is seven levels. The primal, the listener, the wise man, the lover, the protector, the warrior and the king. And at the end of this series, we're going to get into a bonus chapter, a bonus topic that I'm going to throw in there, an 8th one called the Hunter. And I'm really excited about this because this podcast is based off of that book. It's like an expansion of that book. I wrote the book first and then I felt called to do the podcast as well, to expand on it, as I am on my own journey to leveling up my own life and I learn new things every day. So I'm really excited to talk about the things in that book because that's where this comes from, that's why I'm here today. So on this mini series, I'm going to be expanding on those concepts in those chapters, but it's not going to be like word for word, those chapters. So if you already read the book, this is just going to expand on that. And if you haven't read the book yet, you can still read that. This isn't going to take anything away from that, it's just going to supplement it. But yeah, level one of the book, warrior King is the primal. And that's what we're going to be getting into here today. I hope you're well, wherever you're receiving this. I hope that you are pursuing your dreams, the calling for your life. I hope that you are seeking living a fully optimized, leveled up life and improving a little bit each and every day. So let's dive right into it. Born with a naturally wild spirit. How do I know I was one? You can also consult my two sons as they wrestle literally everything in sight and run around the house growling and screaming and trying to use everything they see, everything they find as a weapon. Everything is so intense. Everything is so extreme. And you might recall some of that from when you were a boy. When you were young, you might think, wow, you know, looking back, I was pretty wild, too. And that's because, like I said, boys are naturally wild. Like, we're just born that way. It's innate. And unfortunately, these days, a lot of that is quenched and taken from because society just wants us to sit down and be quiet and be good little boys. And you might recall some of that from your childhood as well. Like, when was the first time that somebody told you to stop being wild? Sit down, be quiet. Maybe it was in public school. Maybe it was in your own home. Try to recall when that was quenched from you. When that wild spirit, that energetic, crazy, wild, primal self was taken from you and you realized, I need to sit down and be quiet or I'm in trouble, right? Or, you know, for a lot of us, for myself included, when we were little, it was medicated out of us. I was medicated from a very early age, you know, Ritalin and that sort of thing, to get me to chill out and be quiet. When you were a kid, do you recall walking around outside or playing outside and finding a stick on the ground and picking it up, and suddenly you were holding Excalibur like you were holding a battle axe that was some sort of weapon. And your first instinct is to swing that thing, right? You pick up a stick, you're either swinging it or you're pointing it like a weapon. Again, a totally natural thing that we just do as boys. When we're boys, we just do that. I don't know why that is. It's just by design. And it is my belief that there's a reason for that. There's a reason that when we're boys, we have that primal, wild, crazy spirit that kind of violent, to be honest with you, especially between the ages of, like, two and maybe eight to ten. You know, it's a little violent. Unless you lived in a very strict environment where they absolutely did not even give you a chance to play like that. But for most of us, I feel like we picked up that stick outside and we swung it like a sword or threw it like a spear or something like that. And I want you to consider that thousands of years ago, maybe even hundreds of years ago, really, not that long ago, honestly. But just think way, way back to, like, survival times where everybody was just on their own, you know, like the tribal times and all that. You know, you would have needed those traits just to survive. A boy just out in the wild would need to defend himself. He would need to fight off people who are trying to attack him. He would need to fight off wildlife that was dangerous and trying to attack him. Right. There's a reason that these things are innate. And since society is so comfortable now, we live in this modern setting where we're just so safe. And I think a lot of us take that for granted as well, but we'll get into that at another time. But we feel just so comfortable and safe. We don't have to fight off invaders to our village. You know, the military's out doing that for us. We don't have to go out and hunt. We can go to the grocery store and get whatever we want, pick whatever kind of meat you want at the grocery store. But back then, a long time ago, you would have had to fight for survival. You would have had to go out hunting. You would have had to fight off invaders to your village. You would have had to defend yourself and your family regularly. It might have been almost an everyday thing back then. And that warrior spirit is still a part of us as men. Just because the world is different now and we live in this comfortable, modern setting, we didn't just suddenly change the way that we were created. We didn't just suddenly magically become a different creature. Right? Like, that's still a part of us. So I believe that that's why a lot of men feel very lost and confused in this modern world and kind of don't know what to do, how to channel their inner warrior spirit in the right ways. And this can get men in all sorts of trouble expressing the warrior spirit in the wrong ways. And I want you to imagine a scenario for me, okay? It's a hunter gatherer tribe in a deep rainforest, and there's two boys outside, and they're battling each other with sticks. They're playing, right? They're swinging at each other. They're swinging in each other's faces, blocking attacks, going after each other. And one of the boys, his dad, has been away on a hunt, and he's waiting for his dad to come back home to see if he brought back anything from the hunt, right? And his mother comes outside and sees him and his friend playing like that with the sticks. They're swinging, you know, it's kind of dangerous. She's like, stop that right now. You can't play like that. She snatches the stick out of his hand. She says, go inside. Don't play like that anymore. Then some time passes, and the father returns from the hunt. And him and his dudes are walking back into the village, and they're pulling carcasses of animals, like, slung over their shoulders. And they've been out there in the wilderness for a while, and they're bringing back what they're going to provide for their families, which is the meat from the hunt. And now the boy sees his father and he runs up and he gives him a big hug around his leg, and he sees the animal that his father drug back home and carried back home. And the father explains to the mother that he needs to go and butcher the meat and separate it and all that kind of stuff. You know, he needs to clean the animal. And the son asks, can I go with you? And the mom says, no, you're coming inside. You're going to help me chop vegetables and take care of your baby sister instead. And so the boy is sheltered from seeing the gore and separation of the animal after the hunt. And the father's passive, and he agrees to have the mother keep the boy while he goes and separates the animal and cleans it and all those sorts of things. And so basically, he's being sheltered from everything that he would need to be the next man of his family, right? So I gotta ask you, how many generations does the tribe have left when all of the men are gone? When all of the strong men are gone? How many generations does that tribe have left when the boys haven't been taught to hunt? When the boys haven't been taught to fight off invaders to the village? When the boys have been sheltered from everything that makes them men, everything that they need to know to be able to protect, provide and survive, it's been taken from them? I'll answer that question for you. Not very many generations, and this is the state of the modern man, completely sheltered from everything that makes us men. You don't have to go out and hunt anymore. You can just go to the grocery store and take your pic of anything you want. Or you can order from a food delivery service and have it delivered to your door. You don't even have to get off the couch anymore. You don't have to fight off invaders to your village. They're out of sight and out of mind. And not only are we sheltered from everything that makes us mention naturally, just innately, just by design, just from being a living being on this planet, but we're also told when we're very young to sit down, shut up. And also we are told that if we are wild, if we are energetic, if we are even masculine, then there must be something inherently wrong with us. And this makes many men just feel so lost in their lives, so confused, right? Just like we don't even know who we are. How can we even be okay if we don't even know who we are? And you know what creates criminals? You know what fills our jails? Do you know why most of the bad things happen in our society? Because men aren't taught that it's okay to be men. That they have a primal, wild warrior spirit, and also how to channel that in the right ways. There is no initiation into manhood. Before now, before modern times, there was always an initiation into manhood. You were a boy, and then there was an event that made you a man. You had to cross the threshold from boy to man. All over the world, people had this. We don't have that anymore. Now many men take it to the extreme by being initiated into a gang, getting involved in criminal activity, trying to seek validation from their peers by doing crazy. The suppression of the primal warrior spirit has caused far more chaos than good. And people will tell you to this day that it is wrong to be manly and masculine and to be wild and primal and free. But the wild beckons if you're a masculine man, which you probably are if you're watching this podcast or listening to it, or you might be on your way there, um, you might have this call to the wild, the call to the outdoors, right? On whatever level that is. Some men take it to the absolute extreme and they go out into the wilderness and survive and live off the land for days and hunt, and they bring back a deer or whatever animal that they're hunting, right? And that's a beautiful thing. Some men find it in open world survival, video games, mmos, things like that. But there is this call to the wild. You know, those video games, there's always a crafting element to it, right? There's a survival element to it. There's being out in the wild and doing quests and hunting and that sort of thing. And, you know, some men find it in golfing. If you're a golfer, I'm not judging you in any way. It's okay to indulge in something that dorky every once in a while. But hey, man, guess what? When you walk out onto the green and you're in your little shorts and your pastel polo, and as reserved as you are to get that perfect form and focus, to get that perfect swing, guess what, man? You're outdoors. Guess what else? It's very fun to swing that stick through the air, isn't it? And part of you just wants to smash that ball into oblivion. But for that, we find the joy of the driving range. But it can't be denied that that primal wild warrior spirit is a part of us as men. It's just in there. You can feel it. You can feel it in your chest. You can feel it in every fiber of your being. And you have learned to suppress that. Now, am I saying to strip naked or run outside and form a spear out of the first stick that you find and kill an animal and eat it with your bare hands? No, I'm not telling you that. That's why we have to learn to channel the warrior spirit in the right ways. And in a sense, we've already done that because we were forced to, right? So that primal wild warrior spirit is within us. Well, we had to learn to be good. We had to learn to fit in with society, right? But it's about embracing that primal wild warrior self and letheme letting yourself know that it's not wrong. It is not wrong to be a man. It is not wrong to have that warrior spirit, the warrior spirit that is within you, that primal warrior self can be used to protect others everywhere you go, you can become the protector. You can view every situation and circumstance like everybody is safer just because you're there. You can use that primal warrior spirit to defend your family. If something bad happens, if something. If someone breaks into your house, God forbid, and tries to attack you and your family, you are that warrior and you can protect them. And it's okay that you are that warrior. The warrior spirit gives you the ability to truly love a woman, to truly love your children, to be a good man. It's channeled in the right ways. You understand what I'm saying? It's not being an. It's being a good, honorable man. It's taking that primal warrior spirit and recognizing this is a part of me as a man, and then channeling that to become the most badass dude in the world, the most badass dude that you can be. And if you choose to channel that warrior spirit in the wrong ways, I'll tell you right now, man, I don't like criminals. I don't like people who hurt other people for personal gain. I don't like low level goons. I don't like and abusers. That is not the warrior spirit. Now, that primal warrior self, it's a part of us, right? We can't escape that. It's a part of us. But we do live in this modern world. So you have to find balance. Recognize that it is a part of you. Embrace and accept that it is okay to be a man. It is okay to be you. And I know that society is telling us otherwise as much as they possibly can. But don't believe the lies of the enemy. Learn what it means to be a good, honorable, respectable, fully optimized, leveled up, man, and get out there and kill it. And I just want you guys to know really quick, going off topic here, whatever you are going through in your life, it is temporary. It will pass. Whatever your circumstances are, whatever wall you're trying to break through, sometimes it just feels like there's wall after wall after wall in front of us, and we just got to break through those walls, right? Sometimes it just feels like no matter where we turn, no matter what we do, no matter how hard we try, there's something stopping us in our tracks. And I promise you it's temporary. Keep breaking through those walls. Break through those walls and get to the other side. Because it's super awesome on that other side. Don't ever give up. Whatever you're going through, whatever you're facing in life, no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much it makes you sad, no matter how much it feels like, it will just never end. You'll never get past this. I'll never get over this, right? It will pass. I promise you. And if you make it to that other side, if you keep breaking through those walls, if you keep winning, I promise you, it is so much better on the other side. Keep leveling up your life every single day. Try to get better every single day. When you fail, when you mess up, which we all do, get back up and try again tomorrow. It's not over. You don't have to beat yourself up about that. I promise myself I'm not going to do so many things tomorrow that I do again all the time. But guess what? Mandez the next day I have another chance and the next day after that I have another chance. And every day I'm trying to be better in my life. Right? If you're not actively trying to level up, you will never level up. And no matter how hard it is, no matter how tough it gets, you are building strength through that process and you are learning and you are gaining wisdom along the way. Every challenge, every pain, every circumstance, every stress is an opportunity to gain wisdom and learn. So just start viewing it as that. And that just came to me right now. I don't know, that's. That's for someone. That's for you. If that was for you, thank you for letting me speak to you today. Yes. Embrace the primal, wild warrior yourself. It is why you would have survived in the old times. Just because we're all so comfortable in the super modern setting, it doesn't mean that that's not a part of us. Learn what it means. Embrace it. Embrace the fact that you are a manly man and that's okay. Channel that warrior spirit in the right ways and level up your life. If you want to expand further on this topic, my book, warrior unlocking masculinity, manliness and the warrior spirit within is available to buy on Amazon. It's in paperback and ebook. There's an audiobook version with virtual voice. I'm not a big fan of the virtual voice myself, but hey, AI is here and we just gotta embrace it. So I just said, yeah, go ahead, put that thing up there, man. So if you want to listen to it while you're driving to work, while you're busy, whatever, throw your Airpods in or whatever people are using these days. You can listen to the book or you can read it. I like the paperback myself. I like to get into a real book. I'm a big highlighter. I keep highlighters with me at all times. You know, I read nonfiction constantly. I'm constantly seeking to learn more about how to level up my life. So I read nonfiction books, highlight the whole thing and yeah, that's how I do it. But yeah, man, if I sold just over a thousand copies of this paperback, I would be able to pay off my car and that would be super awesome for my family. But everything that I learned after my own life fell apart and I had to learn what it means to be a man and level up my own life and rise to the top when everybody thought that I would just crumble and fall apart. Everything that I learned is in that one book. And I want to get it into your hands. So definitely check it out if that's something you're into. On the next episode, we're going to be getting into the listener the second level in the book, warrior King, and we'll discuss the importance of listening and learning when it comes to growing into a wise, honorable man. Hope that you guys got something out of this episode. If you did, definitely leave me a comment. I see all of them. I reply to most of them unless it's super duper dumb. But don't be afraid that it's gonna be dumb, you know, reach out anyways. Chances are I will reply. I appreciate you guys being here. I appreciate you guys reaching out in the comments and all the encouragements. I appreciate all of the donations on the buy me a coffee website. That means a lot to me. It helps us keep doing this podcast. And yeah, I'll catch you guys on the next one. Get out there, kill it, level up your life, get fully optimized, and I'll see you guys on the next one. Thanks guys. Bye.
