How does a man get what he wants?

TRP started out as a place to figure out the answer, for those cases when “what he wants” = “pussy”. But even that specialized case implies the general question. And over the years, three schools of thought have taken shape, and spawned three types of written advice.

The first school is that of the muscle man, who writes in the key of

“If you want something enough, you will work night and day to get it. All improvement lies outside your comfort zone, so seek out pain rather than avoiding it. You must hone your willpower to a razor sharp weapon that you can wield against adversity and conquer the universe thereby. Now go lift something heavy.”

The second school is that of the intellectual, who will tell you

“If you aren’t reading Marcus Aurelius cover to cover, you are wasting your life. The mind is the instrument whereby humanity conquered its birth planet, and you must educate yourself in how to think, understand the human condition, grapple with the problem of meaning, and become the Superior Man (whether in the Confucian sense or the Nietzschean) in order to meet the many challenges of the world.”

Lastly, there is the student. He’s typically not going to tell you how to live your life, and confines himself to writing articles like “The Freeze-Out: How to Overcome LMR”, and “The Basics of Investing for Long-Term Growth”.

But this kind of approach to life does imply something, and what it implies is this:

Specialized preparedness and knowledge beats effort and intelligence every time.

The best seducers of women are those who know specifically how to seduce women. The best earners of wealth are those who know how to invest and spot market opportunities. The best fighters are those who know how to fight, the best painters those who know how to paint, the best writers those who have learned and practiced the skill of writing.

That metaphorical “Red Pill” we gave you wasn’t full of testosterone and determination, or with philosophy, either. It was full of everything we ever learned about women through trial and error.

Discipline and willpower help you to get off your ass and learn. Intellect helps you to make sense of what you see, and turn observation into understanding. But nothing replaces specialized knowledge of the task you wish to succeed at.

And it is through the ability to gather specialized knowledge that humanity has ascended to a level of power that would make us appear godlike to our equally tough and intelligent, but less informed, ancestors.

The vast majority of your failures did not and will not come because you aren’t strong enough, or smart enough, or blessed with some other critically necessary capacity, but because there was some key piece of information you didn't know.

You didn’t get rejected at the last moment by that girl whose bed you were already in because your abs weren’t defined enough, or your jaw not square enough, or your banter not clever enough, it was because you didn’t know that the solution to last minute resistance is to withdraw, not to press harder.

What this all means is that becoming stronger, and smarter, and tougher, and wiser, and cooler-headed, is all good and worthwhile, but if you truly want to be successful in life, then for each new thing you wish to succeed at, you must take the Red Pill. And what did I just say the Red Pill is full of?

It’s full of knowledge.

You have to educate yourself about what you want to do. Then you have to practice it. Then you have to train at it (practice under stress). And this process starts all over again for every new thing you want to learn.

I am not trying to discourage you from lifting and practicing courage and self-discipline. These things will help you. And if you like philosophy, by all means read it. It won’t hurt you any.

But if you are stuck, indeed WHEN you are stuck, because at some time you will be, remember that it’s probably NOT because you “aren’t good enough”, but because there is something critical that you don’t know.

Remember that a door is a wall to anyone who’s never learned about doorknobs.

Tip Whisper for their post.