Charlie Munger once said: “All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there.”

That’s inversion. Success is rarely predictable, but failure almost always is. After fifty, you can’t afford to keep stepping on the same landmines. Last week we raised the floor. This week we flip the question: What destroys the floor—and how do you stop it?

Inversion flips the question. Instead of asking, “How do I succeed?” you ask, “How do I fail — and how do I avoid that?”

This matters because failure is often more predictable than success. You can’t guarantee a personal best, but you can guarantee that scrolling at midnight, eating junk food, drinking too much, or skipping training will wreck your floor.

Men don’t usually fall from one big mistake. It’s the landmines they keep stepping on: dropping standards while traveling, letting stress run the day, or lowering the bar “just this once” when life throws a curveball.

That’s why inversion pairs perfectly with last week’s model. Raising the floor isn’t just about stacking good habits. It’s about defending your baseline from collapse.

Normally we emphasize approach goals—the forward-driving habits that expand your capacity. But sometimes the highest leverage move is subtraction, also known as avoid goals. This week is about the avoid side: identify the failure modes that destroy your floor, and eliminate them.

When you’re in your twenties, you can stumble and get away with it. Pull an all-nighter, eat garbage, slam a few beers, and still answer the bell the next morning. The body is forgiving when it’s young. After fifty, the margins are thinner. The same landmines bury you. By sixty or seventy, they don’t just slow you down—they can take you out of the game entirely.

That’s why inversion matters. Inversion flips the question. Instead of asking, “How do I succeed?” you ask, “How do I fail—and how do I avoid that?”

It’s simple, but it cuts straight to the truth. Most men keep chasing the addition side of the equation. Add a new supplement. Add a new routine. Add another hack. But addition only gets you so far if you haven’t addressed subtraction. The floor doesn’t collapse because you failed to add one more thing. It collapses because you kept stepping on the same landmines.

And here’s the thing about failure: it’s far more predictable than success. You can’t guarantee you’ll hit a personal best or land the big win. But you can guarantee that if you keep eating junk food late at night, if you keep skipping training, if you keep letting stress run your days, your floor will cave in. That’s not a mystery. It’s math.

For men in the second half of life, inversion is non-negotiable because the stakes are higher. Every failure mode you allow accelerates decline. Alcohol at night wrecks your sleep. Junk food sabotages your nutrition. Skipping training weakens your foundation. Inconsistent hydration fogs your mind and slows recovery. Excuses—especially the noble ones—chip away at identity until you’re living below your standards. None of this is random. It’s a script. And as long as you tolerate the script, the ending is always the same.

Take training as an example. Many men say, “I’ll lift at lunch or after work.” Nine times out of ten, they don’t. Meetings pile up, traffic gets in the way, fatigue wins. Inversion asks the better question: “What destroys my training floor?” The answer is obvious—putting training in a time slot that’s always vulnerable. The counter is equally obvious—pay yourself first. Win the morning, win the day.

Or consider mindset. A man convinces himself that it’s all “too hard.” Hard to eat clean. Hard to train consistently. Hard to get sleep. Inversion exposes the flaw: if you label everything hard, you guarantee failure. The reframe is that hard isn’t punishment—it’s the point. Hard builds resilience.

Even the excuses that sound noble—work, family, avoiding injury—collapse the floor if you let them. They feel valid, but they’re poison if they keep you from taking care of yourself. Your family doesn’t benefit from you being weaker. Your business doesn’t grow because you’re tired and foggy. Inversion reveals the truth: hiding behind responsibility is just another way of failing.

That’s what makes inversion such a powerful complement to last week’s model. Raising the floor was about building consistency. Inversion is about protecting it. Because the floor doesn’t usually collapse from one catastrophic event. It collapses from tolerating the same tripwires, again and again, until you’re living far below the standard you set for yourself.

After fifty, you don’t need another trick. You need to stop stepping on the mines you already know are there. Inversion gives you the lens to see them clearly and the discipline to remove them. It’s not sexy. But it’s what keeps your floor intact—and without a floor, the ceiling doesn’t matter.

Inversion only works if you put it on the field. Here’s how:

Step 1: List your landmines.
Write down at least 10 known obstacles, weaknesses, or limiting beliefs. Be brutally honest. For men in our community, the same themes come up again and again: poor nutrition when traveling, alcohol at night, scrolling before bed, skipping training, calling everything “hard,” or leaning on noble excuses like work and family. Your list will look different—but you know exactly what collapses your floor.

Step 2: Design a counter.
Next to each landmine, write one concrete move to block it. Keep it simple. Phone out of the bedroom. 20 oz water before coffee. Book training in the morning, not “later.” Replace “hard” with “this builds resilience.” Every landmine has a counter if you’re willing to choose it.

Step 3: Choose your role.
Victims and villains keep stepping on the same mines. Amateurs and victims list obstacles and stop there. Heroes and Pros take ownership. They write the counters, then act on them. Which role are you choosing?

Your job this week: grab a pen and paper. Write down at least 10 obstacles or landmines you know collapse your floor. Then write one countermeasure next to each. Don’t type it—write it. Declare it. Choose your role as you do it. And then start removing those landmines one by one.

Because success after 50 isn’t about adding more hacks. It’s about refusing to tolerate the failures you already know are killing you.

We ran this inversion exercise inside our new community recently. Men sat down, listed their landmines, and wrote counters. The feedback was consistent: the concept clicked right away. Inversion is simple to understand and easy to implement—even if the work isn’t always easy.

The landmines were familiar: alcohol at night, late screens, poor food choices while traveling, skipping training by promising to “do it later,” and noble excuses that sound valid but quietly erode standards. The counters were equally simple: no food after 6 p.m., phone out of the bedroom, water before coffee, morning workouts locked in, reframing “hard” into “this builds resilience.”

One thing that stood out: the role you choose matters. When you consciously recognize that being a victim, villain, or amateur doesn’t serve you, it becomes easier to step into the role of Hero or Pro. That choice gives inversion teeth—it’s not just about writing a list, it’s about owning it and executing.

That’s the leverage here. Inversion forces clarity. You already know what collapses your floor. Write it down, counter it, and step into the role that supports you.

Inversion is subtraction—refusing to tolerate the patterns that collapse your floor. Success is built just as much on what you avoid as what you pursue.

Here are four resources that bring this truth to life:

The Alpha Triad Course is now live. Future Self. Alpha 5. R.A.D. This is your operating system for becoming harder to kill. It’s available to every Argent Alpha member—start it this month and build your foundation.

Next up: the Guide to Annual Planning (launching November 1). Stop drifting and start leading your life with clarity. Plan with purpose, live with power, and make 2026 your best year yet!

These courses are exclusive to Argent Alpha members. If you’re a man over 50, this is how you raise your standards, protect your floor, and set up 2026 to be your best year yet. 👉 Join Argent Alpha today and claim your spot »