In this edition of the Peak Performance newsletter, we will be discussing:

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1: Why the lone wolf dies alone

• Chapter 2: Self Improvement Loneliness

  • Warning: Rant Incoming

  • Chapter 2.5: Nuance

• Chapter 3: How to benefit from the tribe

Before we start,

And in this post, I go over the crucial lesson that I’ve learnt recently and how can avoid the same mistake that I’ve made.

Also, if this post is too long to read in one sitting, then I recommend you read it in small chunks (5-10 minutes) when you’re walking around, eating, waiting in line, stuff like that.

If this is your first time reading this newsletter, I talk about men issues and young men’s self improvement. So if that sounds interesting, then you might want to stick around.

Chapter 1: Why the lone wolf dies alone

Usually in these emails, I talk about the previous wins and accomplishments that I have and then at the end I give you actionable advice to implement in your own life.

But I don’t have all the answers, and loneliness is something that I really struggled with especially now that I’ve gotten onto this path of self improvement for well over 3 years now.

Instead I’ll practice some humility and say that I am the lone wolf in this situation, and the life that I’m living right now is nowhere near the life that I could be having with a vibrant social group alongside it.

And in 2024, I made the big decision to cut off my connections to focus all my energy on self improvement and growing this newsletter that you see here.

I did make great progress. I made great results in my fitness, in growing this newsletter basically overnight, and overall I did feel more fulfilled and happier when I lived this life of solitude and isolation.

For some time…

But reality really started to hit quite recently when I started going out more in social events and realized the brutal truth.

I don’t have as much power and social leverage in social situations like I used to back when I did have a big group of male friends.

Now you might think that it’s vain or shallow to have those desires, but having power and status as a young man is incredibly important.

Initially, I assumed that I would be happier if I had more time to focus on my goals, but I sacrificed power and potentially my freedom for the pursuit of more progress.

Because when you don’t have this tribe of other guys who like you, who respect you, you don’t have the power to control the narrative anymore.

And if you had this isolated period just like I did, then you are basically at the mercy of other people who might not have your best intentions at heart.

There is safety in numbers, and when a young man doesn’t have that sense of security in his life, then you feel completely powerless.

It dawned on me that the muscle that I’ve built, the “success” I’ve gained from growing this newsletter, none of it really mattered once I was placed in a social setting by myself.

And in actuality, I felt less happy living this life of solitude than when I did have a band of people that I can rely on.

Chapter 2: Self Improvement Loneliness

Most people including myself don’t go on this lone wolf path out of spite or anything like that, but because it genuinely feels like that’s the only choice we have.

That’s what happened around late 2024 before I even started this newsletter.

The problem with self improvement is that you can’t relate to other people anymore because you’re going to improve at a faster rate than most of your friends.

You want your friends to get onto the same path of improving their fitness, reducing the bad habits, etc.

But I found out the hard way that you can’t convince someone to change unless they’ve already been interested in making that change for themselves.

That was when I experienced the worst period of loneliness in my life.

Maybe not right now, but in the future you are going to experience this dip in your social life because you’ll find it so much harder to relate with normal people.

And when that happens, you will be faced with the brutal decision to either stick with your current social group or cut them off so that you can find higher quality friends in the future.

You will feel so much resistance to abandoning your friends, but you will also feel an immense pull towards focusing your own goals because you feel like your current friend group is holding you back.

Warning: Rant Incoming

So here’s how I messed up:

I cut off my friend group completely because I thought that they were holding me back from me focusing on my actual goals and purpose, which at the time was basically to grind on my fitness and learning.

And if I go back and tell my younger self something, it would be this.

When you are an ambitous young man who naturally wants more out of life, you will start to outgrow the people that you used to hang out with.

But, the only occasion where you would completely cut them off is if they are actively trying to bring you down with them.

I wish I knew this earlier, but I found that there are 2 types of people in this situation.

There are your instant gratification buddies, which are your friends who mostly just indulge in video games, partying, junk food, etc.

They aren’t really on self improvement like we are and just go about their day minding their own business, absolutely nothing wrong with that.

And then there’s the crabs, who will purposeful try to harm you whilst you try to improve yourself.

I have to be a little bit pissed off about this, because there were so many occasions in my own journey where I would spend time with these crabs that I knew weren’t even good for me, but stayed there anyways because I was too much of a coward to do anything about it.

And if you don’t know what a crab is, it comes from the “crabs in a bucket mentality” where when a group of crabs see that one crab is trying to climb out of the bucket, all of the rest of the crabs will bring him back down.

And the same analogy applies to human beings. So throughout your self improvement journey, you will eventually come across these crabs who will try to belittle you, insult you, or downright act violent towards you because you’re doing better than them.

So let’s go back to the two types of people again.

The instant gratification buddies in actuality aren’t bad people at all. We could complain about their lifestyle choices but we understand the struggles that they’re going through because we had to experience the same pain before we got onto self improvement.

And honestly, these types of people are actually really fun to be around. They’re mostly chill and out-going, and they won’t try to insult you because you wanted to eliminate instant gratification from your daily lifestyle.

In fact, the people that I’ve came across with, and the friends that I used to hang out with genuinely really respected me because they could see my hard work ethic and the confidence that I bring to the table.

Which any man, regardless on if he was disciplined or lazy, would actually respect because that’s what mentally healthy people do.

It’s actually the crabs that you need to look out for, because these are the insecure types of people who hate it when they see you succeed.

So think about how fucked up it is for someone to see you doing better than them. And instead of getting inspired or at least showing respect to your efforts, they will bring you down to their level.

And unfortunately, the most likely reason for this is because your existence, your actions is challenging their entire belief system about themselves, and that makes them incredibly insecure.

Like imagine if you were fat for most of your life, and you couldn’t get the weight off because you’ve convinced yourself that it was impossible to do so.

Now imagine you had a friend that was in a similar circumstance, but over the years he was able to drastically change his habits and eventually got the muscular physique that you’ve wanted all along.

Now the mentally healthy person will see that and be inspired to go down the same path, which is already incredible to see.

But there will be some motherfuckers who will see that and make it their life mission to tear you down because they just couldn’t see themselves making the results that you’ve made.

And that is the danger with insecure, emotional people nowadays.

And we as men on self improvement, it’s not that we hate other people who don’t follow the same lifestyle choices as we do. Since that would also be emotional and insecure of us to do so.

But the real enemy here are the people who will rather try to belittle you, to convince you that this path your own is completely stupid, than to actually improve their own lives.

And in my opinion, that is honestly just beyond sad at that point.

Now you may be thinking, “Wait aren’t you going a little bit too harsh on them?”

And yes, I may be, but I also understand where they’re coming from as well.

Insecure people only hate on others because they’ve faced a far worse reality than what they can dish out.

I like to think of myself as a pretty secure guy, but even I’m sometimes envious of other people that I’m seeing doing better than me.

Either on social media, well mostly on social media. I see someone who more jacked than me, who’s more successful than me, who has more status than me, and I can’t help but to feel bad about my own progress.

And it not that I hate them for doing better, but I hate the fact that I’m not putting as much effort as I can in my own goals if there is someone who is doing even better than I could currently.

So I guess there is a distinction there, but the point nonetheless that even I get insecure too.

But I don’t let that insecurity cloud my own judgement and make fun of others for trying to improve their own lives.

I have no problem with people who would like to indulge in instant gratification, even if that goes against what I preach here inside of this newsletter.

But if they’re actually nice people and we can split our differences with each other, then I think that’s a great friendship to have as well.

And the nicest, most respectful people that I’ve made were my instant gratification buddies.

And while I didn’t agree with how they were living, looking back I still am extremely grateful for the amount of respect that they’ve given me even though I wasn’t exactly the most fun person to be around.

And that’s the thing, especially when you’re on self improvement, it’s going to get harder and harder to relate to more people because your lifestyle is so conflicted with each other.

But regardless, I still think that having some instant gratification buddies around you is no big deal as long as it doesn’t sabotage your own progress in the long run.

And sometimes, it’s good not to obsess over self improvement too much. And I need to hear that advice often times a lot more than the opposite because I am naturally that guy who overthinks about this a lot.

But the mistake that I don’t want you to make is to completely disregard your instant gratification friends and put them in the same bin as the crabs.

Because as a young man, having friends and a vibrant social group is extremely fulfilling to have.

And I don’t want you to throw that away for the pursuit of more muscle or money or whatever.

Because whenever I was in that state of just working, working, working. There were also many times where I wasn’t even happy with what I was doing.

Because what I craved the most was having a group of brothers to talk to, instant gratification or not. That feeling of brotherhood, of connection, of status, those are things that fulfil us greatly as men.

And when you sacrifice all of that just for more self improvement gains, then you might be going down the wrong path of the social autist rather than someone who is positively benefiting from it.

I’m sorry for going on this long tangent, but I feel like this is extremely important to talk about, and something that I’ve been experiencing throughout my own journey for a while now.

Also, whenever I’m quite passionate on a certain topic, I tend to ramble on a lot more.

If I could go back, I would tell my younger self to keep my friends close, but my enemies closer. Because the crabs that I’ve mentioned earlier, they don’t look any different from the instant gratification buddies that I used to spend time with.

And more often than not, they are the ones who are the hardest to identify, because some of them are incredibly deceptive with their malicious actions.

They’re will be crabs that are super easy to spot and then easy to just cut out completely.

But they’re will also be crabs that aren’t and will pose as a friend just to stab you in the back later.

And how do I know this?

Because ever since I’ve been on my self improvement journey, the biggest crabs I’ve faced along the way was my own family members.

Its often not the people who you think will “betray’ you but the people who you often spend the most time with.

This section isn’t for me to say that everyone is out to get you or anything.

But be extremely careful of any mannerisms or micro expressions whenever you do something that will tick them off.

They might not even say it to your face, and most often they won’t. But they will make sly remarks, weird facial expressions whenever you’re interacting with them, and overall a strange aura that they’re giving off will generally give it away.

I made a mistake by not trusting my intuition sooner, but that get me in a far deeper mess than if I just trusted my gut instincts than to play along and see where it went.

So if you’ve got anything out of this long rant. just make sure that you have good people around you who respect you for your efforts, rather than bring you down.

And learn from my mistakes, don’t be so fast to dismiss people because of their way of life, but rather their character instead.

Because I lived the life of isolation for one year, and it already felt terrible to not have anyone to rely on and rather be exposed to the crabs that tried to sabotage my own progress before.

Having friends is what makes life as a man worthwhile, and it would be a shame not to focus on building healthy connections for at least a period of your self improvement journey.

Chapter 2.5: Nuance

Of course there’s exceptions or nuance to this rule. The only exception that I would say is reasonable is if you were already well advanced in your self improvement journey, and you wanted to dedicate a period of solitude because it would actually be better if you completely focused on your work, then I would get how that would be more beneficial.

I’m not saying I’m at that level yet, but even I had long periods of isolation where I either focused on building my dream physique or on work, and life was actually less fulfilling compared to when I had more friends by my side.

Maybe for you, it could be different. I’m quite the lone wolf in a sense because I didn’t really value social connection until now, and even I’m experiencing the negative symptoms of loneliness.

But it’s up to you to decide what type of person you are, and if you benefit from having more good people in your life or just focusing on your goals.

Chapter 3: How to benefit from the tribe

The advice to be more social and spend less time in your room is self explanatory, but the reason why most of us struggle is because we want to balance our self improvement with our social life.

Maybe you won’t relate to this yet if you’re just starting (getting into the gym, reducing instant gratification, building a business, etc.)

But for the young guys like myself who have been quite consistent in our pursuits to improve your fitness, finances, relationships, we don’t want to lose the progress that we’ve already made by spending too much time going out, drinking, partying, etc.

At least, that was my original thought at first, but now I can see the benefits with having a vibrant social life if it’s done in the right way.

I like to think about it in this way.

Imagine we were still in the caveman times, our survival depended on how close we were to the tribe or not.

We couldn’t defeat the sabretooth tiger on our own, so being kicked out of the tribe or being completely isolated would have meant certain death at that period of time.

Nowadays, the stakes are not so high, but we still feel the negative effects of not connecting with other human beings.

We were meant to be social animals, and we greatly benefitted from one another.

It’s like you don’t even feel human anymore, and I just stayed in this weird haze for a year whilst experiencing mild symptoms of depression and anxiety from not interacting with other people.

So in this section, I was going to talk about how you can benefit from having a tribe of friends in your self improvement journey.

And I like to always give out actionable advice towards the end of my emails, but since this is something that I’m currently learning as well, I really don’t have much answers on this one.

But what I can say is that what I’ve been doing recently really has improved my mood and kept me more in a social state than if I wasn’t.

And that is providing some kind of value to the tribe.

Recently, I’ve been posting on reddit a lot more, giving other people snippets of what I already know when it comes to delayed vs. instant gratification, dopamine detox, etc.

And I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on those posts, which has really given me a sense of responsibility to keep providing value back to the tribe.

It isn’t the same as if I was doing it in person, but it can scratch the itch for social connection in some way.

But mostly, the validation that I get when I benefit the tribe is what I’m looking for, and it inspires me to keep working hard on my goals and to spread this message of self improvement.

Because whenever you provide value to the tribe, then you always get something in return.

Whether that means praise, money, status, all of those rewards are positive achievements to strive for.

And I don’t think those desires should be hated in the modern day as much as it should be.

Of course, when I mean by your tribe that could also just mean your community, social circle, etc.

But I feel like looking at social dynamics in a caveman type of analogy really helps boil down what we’re trying to achieve here as men.

Because we want the best rewards, the most resources, and that comes when we are higher status in the social ladder.

So don’t think that not making progress in leveling up your social connections is a good thing, in fact your social life really dictates most if not how happy you are overall.

Because a young man without his tribe is a man without resources. And a man without resources in the caveman times would most likely if not always die off.

And that’s why in this post, I covered why you shouldn’t fall for the lone wolf trap in the same way as I did.

I really enjoyed writing this post this week. Not going to lie, I was hesitant about posting it because I wasn’t sure if it was relevant enough to the overarching theme of masculinity.

But I realize that not every single post has be about masculinity directly, but the ways in which we can improve ourselves as young men on self improvement.

And I believe that valuing our social life more is a great step in the right direction.

So that is why I chose to talk about this topic today.

Also, I apologize for the long side tangent in the middle, but I hope that you were able to see the passion behind what I do and why this movement is so important.

I was actually worried on how well this email would turn out since my mind was drawing blanks at the beginning, but I think that I made it pretty informative in the end.

If this email resonated with you, then you can click the “read online” button where you’ll find everything I discussed on mental health, dopamine detox, and young men’s self improvement.

I hoped you’ve found this email helpful. And if you’ve did then I’d heavily appreciate if you’d left a comment on how it impacted you.

Until then, take care.