How Publishing 52 Newsletters In A Row Makes You Harder To Kill

Welcome to issue #052 of Harder To Kill!

One of the core beliefs at Argent Alpha is to get comfortable doing uncomfortable things.

I covered this concept in issue #049. Doing hard things makes you stronger, smarter, resilient and more equipped to deal with life and all its curveballs.

When I started this newsletter nearly a year ago (first issue was delivered September 30, 2022), learning and writing in public was uncomfortable.

And committing to a weekly newsletter was really uncomfortable. What if I ran out of ideas? What if I forgot or was late? What if weekly is too often, maybe monthly is better?

And my biggest fear - what if nobody subscribed?

The list of limiting beliefs was long.

But here we are 52 issues later and none of those fears materialized.

Over 50 Men over 50 have benefitted from our process and community. They are all Harder to Kill.

Subscribers went from 93 to over 1,000.

I’ve written over 60,000 words in the first 52 issues. The average nonfiction book is between 50,000 to 80,000 words. So I accidentally wrote a book by taking on this challenge.

And that book project is on deck…stay tuned for a late Q4 announcement.

Limiting beliefs can be a soul crusher but when you overcome them, magic happens.

Harder To Kill Lesson: Getting out of your comfort zone and trying new things is good for you, no matter your age.

Would It Work?

When I launched our first group in October 2022 I had tested my concepts on myself (it worked) and with a handful of friends (it worked).

But that’s a small sample size. I needed to find out if our process and community could help a broader audience of Men over 50.

I made changes to the program based on the test group and got more clear on what a successful first 100 days would look like for a member.

But I delayed launching due to limiting beliefs (there’s that word again).

Questions I kept wrestling with included:

• how would I reach this group (successful Men over 50 are not easy to reach).

• what messaging would appeal to them?

• can you teach an old dog new tricks (as a fellow old dog, I knew it was 50/50).

• was the market big enough to support a business?

• how much are people willing to invest in a program like this?

My wife asked me one day how my hobby was going. That comment (I’m pretty sure she knew exactly what she was asking) spurred me to action.

I didn’t want this to be a hobby. I wanted to help Men over 50 become harder to kill and the only way I could do that in a meaningful way was to launch a business, deliver value, and use the revenue to keep improving the experience.

So I stopped preparing and started working.

Website, checkout page, credit card processing, bank accounts, LLC setup, the list went on. Conceptually none of this was new to me but to be honest, I had always had a team to do the actual work. But I got it done.

And then on to the real challenge: recruiting the first group of Men who would experience the “launch” version of Argent Alpha.

To this day I have not invested in advertising. My recruiting was a combination of word of mouth from my test group of Men (walking billboards) and posting on LinkedIn.

I had no clue what to expect but I was prepared for crickets.

But that didn’t happen. There was a real appetite for what we were doing.

Our first group of guys started in early October 2022. Most of these Men are members today and are totally different Men from when they started.

If it weren’t for the nudge from my wife, I might still be “getting ready” to launch and I would have missed the opportunity to work with this group of Men. And I wouldn’t be writing today’s newsletter either.

Steve Pressfield would say I “turned pro.”

Harder To Kill Lesson: You are ready. Stop listening to the voices in your head and get started. You’ll figure it out as you go.

Kaizen

Back in the 80’s I remember learning about Kaizen, sometimes referred to as CANI (constant and never ending improvement).

Kaizen is an approach to creating continuous improvement based on the idea that small, ongoing positive changes can reap significant improvements.

This had double meaning for me. I knew that applying Kaizen to my program was necessary to improve it.

But it is also a concept that we encourage our members to embrace. Small changes made consistently add up over time. Darren Hardy calls this The Compound Effect.

One of the changes we made (and continue to work on) is to not throw guys into the deep end of the pool on day 1.

Early on, the feedback I got from nearly everyone was that they felt like “they were drinking from a firehose.” I wasn’t sure there was any other way to do it.

But I received wise counsel from our members and our Director of Training, Brock Harling. In a nutshell, start slow, build some consistency, and over time layer in new things.

The first Man we tried this new approach with crushed it. Absolutely crushed it.

Here are his InBody numbers (InBody measures body fat, lean muscle, weight and some other interesting stats).

Here is the summary of his results over roughly 6 months:

• Fat loss: 25 lbs

• Muscle increase: 7.5 lbs

• Body fat % on Feb 22: 26.0%

• Body fat % on Sept 1: 14.5%

When most people set out to lose weight, they lose fat and muscle which has a number of negative implications, including a reduced metabolism. The result: they have to eat even less to avoid gaining weight.

It’s why we focus on losing fat and preserving muscle. Adding muscle during a fat loss phase is supposed to be impossible but we see it all the time. We have a 4 part series on how to lose fat and add muscle starting with issue #008.

Harder To Kill Lesson: Focus on consistently making small, positive changes and you’ll achieve dramatic results over time.

Identity Shift

“The only way to make your present better is by making your future bigger.” — Dan Sullivan

Most guys come into Argent Alpha for a handful of reasons, including wanting to:

• lose weight

• improve habits

• get stronger

• reverse the trend line they are on

You can accomplish any of the things above by simply setting a goal and following a process to achieve that goal.

But why do so many people who go through a transformation bounce back to their old self or even worse?

Because they have not changed their identity. They are still the same person operating with basically the same set of beliefs.

We leverage concepts from James Clear and Dr. Benjamin Hardy to help Men create an identity shift so the changes they make are sustainable and become permanent.

Below is Clear’s 3 Layers of Change model with our process for each layer. When you integrate all 3 layers of change, you not only get dramatic transformations, you also create a sustainable lifestyle.

Every member receives a copy of “Be Your Future Self Now” by Dr. Benjamin Hardy. They create version 1.0 of their Future Self (the identity they will create) and then start adopting the habits and behaviors of that future self.

Note: Dr. Hardy has made a free future self course available for a limited time.

The reason we refer to it as “version 1.0” is that the Man who starts this process is very different from the Man who follows this program for 6 months or more.

Upper limits are raised (or removed) and the idea of what is possible completely changes.

Men need to see results first in order to believe an even bigger story that awaits them. Once they experience the results they wrote about in version 1.0 they create version 2.0. That’s why we call the first 100 days the Argent Alpha Upgrade.

Version 2.0 is so far beyond what they could have imagined when they joined the program they never would have believed it at the time.

Version 1.0 is linear growth.

Version 2.0 is exponential growth.

I’m excited to see what version 3.0 looks like for these guys.

I’ve lost count of the Men over 60 who can now do strict pull-ups (and many can do double digits). Guys have gotten off meds, hit lifetime personal records in various fitness efforts, improved their sleep and have changed how they think the rest of their life will play out.

They have re-written the stories they tell themselves.

They have moved from a default future to a designed future.

All of this in less than a year!

Harder To Kill Lesson: Moving from a default identity to a designed identity transforms your future which in turn improves your present.

Conclusion

We have covered 4 lessons I learned from writing a newsletter 52 weeks in a row and they all can be applied to make YOU Harder To Kill. They are:

Harder To Kill Lesson #1: Getting out of your comfort zone and trying new things is good for you, no matter your age.

Harder To Kill Lesson #2: You are ready. Stop listening to the voices in your head and get started. You’ll figure it out as you go.

Harder To Kill Lesson #3: Focus on consistently making small, positive changes and you’ll achieve dramatic results over time.

Harder To Kill Lesson #4: Moving from a default identity to a designed identity transforms your future which in turn improves your present.

We all tend to overestimate what we can achieve in the short term and underestimate what we can achieve in the long term.

I invite you to choose one of these lessons that resonates with you and go deep on it. If my experience is any indicator, you’ll be amazed at what can happen over the course of 12 months.

And thank you for being a reader of Harder To Kill. I appreciate it.

The 4th quarter of 2023 is fast approaching. You could be a whole new Man by Christmas and go into 2024 with momentum if you start making changes today (and avoid the extra 5-10 lbs gained from the holidays).

The first step is completing a short form. You’re invited to join us.