The Two Life Paths
This is a summary of a speech I used to give high school and college students years ago when I was doing more public speaking. It applies mostly to younger men, but older men will find some value from it as well.
In life, there are two possible paths you can take. (Well, there are technically more than two, but these key two are the two I’m going to discuss today.)
The first path is Path A. This is the path taken by most normal people in society, particularly Americans, though most people in the Western world follow a very similar road. If you look at all the statistics for how people behave over the course of their lives, it describes Path A.
If you break down Path A into individual decades of your life, it looks like this (click to zoom):
In your first decade of life, your time is mostly spent learning how to be a human being. You are a small child. You have no freedom and no agency. Your life is completely controlled by outside sources, namely your parents and teachers.
In your second decade of life, your teens, your time is mostly spent learning how to be an adult. Though you have the body of an adult, you still don’t have the freedom, faculties, or agency to live your life as you choose, and still can’t accomplish much.
In your twenties, you spend most of your time screwing up your life. Again, if you look at the stats, most human beings spend most of their twenties doing everything wrong and fucking everything up. It’s usually during your twenties when you do things like:
- Go into debt
- Drop out of college
- Get drunk a lot
- Have babies out of wedlock, and with the wrong person
- Get into serious relationships with the wrong people
- Fuck up your finances
- Do a lot of drugs
- Go to college for no reason
- Blow your money on stupid shit
- Waste large amounts of time on things like video games and vacuous social activities
- Commit crimes
- File bankruptcy
- Marry the wrong person
- And so on
In your thirties, you snap out of your stupidity and look back over all the problems you caused for yourself in your twenties. You then spend most of this decade cleaning up the mess you created in your twenties. You clean up your finances, you buckle down and get a solid income, you get divorced if you need to, you cut way back on the drugs, alcohol, and other reckless activities, you stop wasting as much time, you stop getting into relationships that aren’t quite as stupid, and so on.
By the time you hit age 40 or so, you’ve more or less cleaned up your mess, but you haven’t really done anything with your life yet, since you’ve spent the last 20 years of your adulthood fucking everything up and then cleaning it up. So finally, in your early 40’s, you start from zero again, but this time you do it right. During this decade, your income is at its highest, which is good, but the problem is your expenses are also at their highest. Your lifestyle costs are huge; house, cars, spouse, kids who are probably teenagers (a very expensive time). You work very hard, make a decent amount of money, but it all pretty much goes to monthly keep-up-with-the-Joneses expenses.
In your fifties, you start feeling old, so you look at your finances, then you panic because you haven’t really saved any money yet. “Holy shit!” you cry, “How the hell can I retire?!?” You spend this entire decade stressing the fuck out about not having enough money for retirement (because you spent it all in your forties) as well as dealing with a slew of new medical problems because you haven’t been taking care of your health. It’s a stressful time.
In your sixties and beyond, you reach a state of poverty and dependence. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, 95% of Americans at age 65 do not reach the point of financial independence supporting an average lifestyle. This means that if you choose Path A, when you’re over 60, you are in a state of dependence. You depend financially on your government, church, charity, or your kids to pay your bills, and you live in a state of poverty, at least to some degree.
And then you die.
That’s Path A. That’s literally how the vast majority of people live. Does that sound like fun?
Now let’s talk about an alternate path, Path B. This is the path that I chose as a young man. It looks quite different than Path A. Path B looks like this (click to zoom):
The first two decades of life under Path B look pretty much the same as Path A. You’re a child or a teenager with no real agency.
But, in your twenties, instead of running around and fucking everything up, you buckle down, get focused, and work. You work hard for just a few years, and lay foundations financially, sexually, and even perhaps physically and with fitness that will benefit you for the rest of your life.
Then, by the time you’re in your thirties, you’re pretty much good to go for the rest of your life. That doesn’t (necessarily) mean you retire in your thirties. (I certainly didn’t.) It means that the rest of your life, from your thirties all the way to when you die as an old man, is pretty much smooth sailing. All the problems and stresses of people on Path A never happen to you. If you do have problems (and you will, everyone has problems), the severity of these problems are far, far reduced from the problems people on Path A have.
Any “fun” or whatever you missed out in your twenties, if any, can be quickly recouped ten times over after you turn thirty. You actually have the rest of your life to have fun and live a good life. This is what I did with the woman side of my life. Yeah, I lost my virginity later than most, and didn’t get laid a lot in my twenties, but holy shit, I’ve more than made up for that twenty times over since turning 35, and not just with quantity of women or sex, but with quality of women, sex, and relationships as well. Now I have sex and the money / financial security for the rest of my life.
Path B is so much better than Path A.
One of my biggest mentors, Brian Tracy, explained it this way:
In order for a pilot to take off from the runway, he needs to put the plane at 100% full throttle. But once he gets to cruising altitude, he can back off the throttle to just 5%, and the plane still flies just fine. Life is the same way. Once you get to a certain point (specifically with money and women), you can just dial back the work to just 5% (if you want to, and if you don’t that’s okay too), kick back, and enjoy life, for the rest of your life.
Most people, while on the runway, shove that throttle to 80% or 90% and keep it there for the rest of their lives. They bust their asses, have all kinds of problems and stress, and never take off. They don’t want to go to 100% because that’s “too much work,” so they suffer at 80% or 90% for the rest of their lives, never take off, and literally never get to the point where they can dial it back to 5% and truly relax stress-free and live a great life.
There are also those men who set the throttle to 20% because they “don’t want to work too hard” or “I don’t want to sacrifice” or “what’s the point?” and they just live a shitty, mediocre life for the rest of their lives, never being able to do the things they really want, and end up being spiteful about it all. That’s not happiness, nor is worrying about paying your electric bill when you’re over 35.
Path A or Path B.
As always, the choice is yours.
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Excellent.
This should be drilled into the heads of young guys. I think most are just blissfully unaware there are other paths since damn near everyone from family, friends, teachers, etc… tell them there is only path A and that it’s perfectly normal even though it sucks a lot of the time. It’s tough being the lone voice out there telling them there is another way but they need to hear it, even if only 5-10% actually implement. I didn’t really get going on “path b” until later in life at about 35 but it’s already made a huge difference in my happiness in just 5 years.
I don’t have nor want kids but I’ve always thought it would be cool to mentor younger guys about these kind of topics. I would most definitely use your blog as a primary resource to explain these concepts. Inevitably they will ask things like “what will parents think???” and I can point them to a few articles right here.
Great post man!
Thank you Black dragon. Your alpha 2.0 male business is gold.
I’m reaching the point now of having read your blog & book for a year now. It’s such a crazy transformation. I was 21 when I first read it
Before I read your blog and book I was:
Dicking around with college
Smoking weed alot
Inconsistently approaching girls hear and there with a monogomous gf
Thinking of having kids when In actuality I don’t care to have them at all
Taking on credit card debt, student loans, etc.
Now I’m kind of cleaning up all that up
I’m working a fulltime sales job
Working on my internet business
Approaching girls through day game
Cleaning up my finances
Granted I haven’t truly transformed much of that so far, but I’m on the right path. It all started with your alpha 2.0 male book. Now I feel 100x better having real direction in my life. I see damn near ALL my friends fucking up their lives. Having kids, dating a girls who’s a complete bitch. Taking out loans. Going to college for 5-6 years. It’s crazy!
Luckily I found your stuff at 21 otherwise I’d have dug an even deeper hole for myself. Hope your stuff reaches more young men like myself. We need it
Yep I took plan a. Didn’t even know there was a plan b. Fucked up in my 20s and 35 trying to repair the damage. Young guys with the internet at their finger tips have an advantage. Â I was already fucking up before I even knew what AOL was. Remember dialup? Little sister picking up the phone and your connection would crash. After reading blogs and sites like this one I finnaly know what to do.
Tracy’s metaphor is awesome.
Still I don’t have it clear, what would be the differences between 30’s repair damage of plan A vs 20’s working hard in Plan B, besides one starting earlier.
Starting a STEM career in a country with free college, for example, and finishing it in time, would that be plan A or B?
Because you’ll be at least 10 years ahead in life by the time you hit age 30 under Path B.
You know what I think about college. But ignoring that, it would depend on what you do after college. College is just 4 years; what’s relevant is what you do for the entire 10 years in your 20’s.
If you use the years between 23 and 30 to start a business and hit it hard, that’s Path B. If you use it to get a corporate job before getting oneitis for some chick and getting married by 30 or 35, that’s Path A.
Plan B is under work right now, mostly because my divorce was entirely free, surprisingly. My only fear is the damn country falling apart through communism (Im not in the USA), so I really need to start getting ready to move away.
But the mission right now is buying a house without taking any debt and become a 220 lbs ripped guy before reaching 29. Both under way, wish me luck
BD, I am about to inherit 30k in the next 90 days. I have about 5k in credit card debt and less then 10k on a car. I plan on paying them off first. What would you do with the rest? I know what I want to do but, I suck with money. I want to hear what you would do with it. Seems you have your shit together. Its not much so I want to use it wisely.
I feel this is mostly on topic and might help others that follow you (don’t send me to your off topic link)
If Alpha 2.0 is what you seek, the sequence should always be this, and in this order:
1. Save $1000-$2000 in an emergency fund.
2. Pay off all debts (except for a home mortgage if you have one).
3. Save 6-12 months of living expenses in a very safe, liquid fashion (cash in a safe or a money market account at an investment firm, do not use a bank for long-term savings). 25-50% of this should be in nonnumismatic gold coins, the rest in cash. This replaces/becomes your new emergency fund.
4. Start investing for the long term, saving as much of your monthly income as you can in boring, safe investments (as I talk about in my other blog). 15% of your monthly income should be a minimum, 40%+ is better.
5. Pay off your house, if you have one.
With your money you can hit item 1 and 2, and get a good start on number 3.
Question for Blackdragon and those in their late 30s or early 40s or older:
Are you as happy being happy *now* as an older man as you were in your youth?
I am in my late 20s, early 30s and I’m involved in an enterprise that will leave me rich enough to retire in the next 3-5 years and never have to work again.
At the same time, I have the feeling that my youth is slipping away.
I’d rather have happy moments now, while I feel I can still enjoy them, and be a fatuous, carefree kid, rather than work hard now and set myself up to live better in the future.
Hey BD,
I am a 17 year old high schooler. Your book details mapping out one’s goals in particular areas and then using time management and focus to work on them. But if you were my age, how would your interactions with the opposite sex be like? How would you structure your dating and sex life?
Also,
Do you have practicing the same “life path” which your self has advised us on, BD?
A.K.A
In conjunction with your other article where will you place people that ARE successful in terms of money but live a lavish but boring life. You know the workaholics who spend or even save much but do boring stuff like give the wives money to spend on bags, give money to children to spend recklessly or save money like scrooge and its only work and family for them?
For example in the million next door book it gives a good summary of the person who makes money but lives a very down to earth lifestyle. I know such people. And their life sucks even if they have money. They don’t care about their women life, physical care, almost 0 recreational life etc. In comparison to the typical guy in Path A their life is worse. Because they never really enjoy life.
For me success its not only about money but have a good balance of few things. And the 2.0 lifestyle is what describes the success perfectly.
@BD: I request permission to post under a different nickname in the future. I’m not doing it to troll or anything, but for complex anonymity-related reasons. Can I do that? Of course I will stick exclusively to the new nickname once I change it.
Ouch.
As a 45 y/o cleaning up messes, younger guys, fucking listen to BD.
One thing I will add is this: You have a throttle and a brake. To go 100%, you have to stand on the throttle and get the fuck off the brake. I’m not sure which is harder.
The brake, of course, is largely Socital Programming, with a good dose of feminist brainwashing for many of us (of course they overlap, but the wrong type of feminism supercharges SP….I’m not a MGTOW pussy who blames feminism for everything, I love and encourage women, etc).
Gee!
If I only had known somebody like you 30 years ago…
Far more happy, orders of magnitude more happy, yes. I was a beta in my youth.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I am 45 years old, and I feel just as youthful and energetic as I ever did when I was 25. Reasons for this are: exciting goals, fantastic lifestyle, positive outlook, Mission, good health habits, TRT, and lots of sex with hot women.
Get off my blog and don’t come back until you’re 18. Last warning. I will ban you if you post again. I have to for legal reasons.
Of course. I’m surprised you have to ask.
Note that in the article I said you could work more hours than required if you choose, and I choose. But yes, I make a six figure income that only requires about 1.5 days a week of work to maintain, I’m physically healthy, have a great love/sex life, and so on. I’m good to go.
I don’t care. Go ahead.
Yes, it all depends on life structure. If you looked at my house or the neighborhood I live in, you would have no idea how much money I make or what my net worth is. I guess my car is pretty nice, but even then, I drive a Lexus, not a Range Rover or Mercedes or Ferrari, even though I could easily afford those things.
It’s not about lavish or not, and it’s not even about workaholic or not. It’s about how happy you are.
I lived a poor lifestyle, where I struggled to pay my bills and lived a shitty life. That did not make me happy.
I lived a high-on-the-hog lifestyle, where I lived in a huge, fancy house in an expensive neighborhood supporting a high-cost family, and stressed about my debts, retirement, and living expenses. That didn’t make me happy either.
Today I live a life where I have plenty of money, live on the high end of middle class, and have massive financial stability and massive freedom. That makes me happy. Very happy.
As Blackdragon said, how young you feel is related to your diet, physical fitness, testeosterone and stress levels, etc. It won’t change dramatically in the next 3-5 years.
Work hard the next 3-5 years to retire, then once you get rich take 6 months off to focus on your fitness (do lots of sport, go outdoors, eat better, take supplements, etc). You will probably feel even better than today.
pancakemous
I was most unhappy during 10 years of mandatory school where I was forced to memorized living creatures’ unique names for labeling diagrams, all the math formulas in every grade, the periodic table, mandatory art, woodshop, instrumental classes once a year. There’s no company who will pay you one dollar for these school skills or school facts you will spend 10 yrs memorizing daily.
I’m hard pressed to find 30-50s employees who are happy toiling for their corporate jobs. I do find 30-50s yr old bosses who work longer, harder hours happily for their own companies.
I mean you can fool around all evening and nights from 20-30 but you’ll realize you have no skills developed. Then you’ll have to develop one skill or two from your 30-40. Since you only started learning the skill you will making low money. And when you are good, from 40-50, exploit this skill to earn serious money.
BD
Too busy trialanderroring on E3D.
Nevertheless … path B is quite “what father says to his son” maybe with a little bit more fun and joy.
Path A it’s the young and restless version of good old fashion conformity … dessed up in sexy clothes!
Since the 60s elite figured out that instead of law, order and moral, masses would be better controled with sex, drugs and rock and roll. The usual 10% would master it, the rest would just screw up and get stuck on all “that freedom”.
I’m not advocating good all times. I’m just figuring out how come opportunity became dependency!
Enough social dynamics farting :-). Back to time management mastering …
That’s my point. Above all happiness.
Yet there are people who make money at young age and can support next generation, but have almost 0 life outside of work and family. So are these people really successful? Do they have it any better than a partyboy who enjoys his life young and then screws it up? Yes they have the safety and financial stability but they are still slaves of their own structure and never really enjoy their lives.
That’s where I’m at. Which kinda really sucks, I pissed away my 20s struggling with addictions (drinking the first half, sleeping pills the second). I don’t even think college has much to do with this, as most organizations look to see if entry-level applicants have a college degree of some sort. That being said, becoming an Alpha 2 and doing the stuff BD talks about probably requires high school education…at best. Like if my 16-17 year old self had access to BD’s blogs, I would still be able to understand most of it and learn from most of it.
If I were 20 years younger in this day and age, I would probably drop out of high school, get a GED the day after, then go to junior college for a couple years.
You have legal reasons to say that, however I would have loved to get access to the knowledge of your blog and books back in my early teens, like before 14 years old back in 1997, to get enough time to steer towards the best education choices and work path. I feel severak years before 18 is indeed best to get these knowledge about women and business.
Out of my 5+1 year of university, I would really only do again the 2 first.
I was about to marry at 29/30 after a relstionship most of the time de facto monogamous for me because I was too beta to date enough to have side relstionships.
But thank god my father insisted on a prenup (which was also my idea, I just didn’t realise it’s much more formal than for the civil union that we already had), and I also figured out at that time that I really don’t want kids, so she bailed out at the last minute by refusing the prenup and tried to impose monogamy. I also started the year prior really putting into action the agreement we had that it’s an open relationship, which she enjoyed for herself for years but suddenly didn’t like me doing (I was doing it all wrong though, not enough discretion, generating huge drama).
Great article! I can say for sure that your material has made this 5% throttle principle in regards to dating very true. I used to work so hard at dating. Now, it just kinda happens more naturally because I don’t feel ashamed about my desires and I am not focused on making them happy etc.  However, I can control myself and my actions.
But when it comes to finances, especially after a Divorce, the tricky part I struggle with is that many of these expenses (alimony, excessive & unfair imputed child support, etc) are not determined solely by my actions, but by attorneys and judges, who seek to control us with their power.
So, it is similar to a airplane going through a powerful thunderstorm with lots of turbulence and there is only so much I can do it feels. What are your ideas on how to deal with situations like this?
Do I fight against the storm and work 2 jobs (my company and a 2nd job) just to have more $ or just lay low and just ride the storm out?
Okay BD, please take this anonymous user’s word for it that he’s in his 30s and has an 18 y. o. brother. What advice regarding the opposite sex should I give him?
Not in my view.
They might. It really depends on the specifics of both scenarios.
For example, I would rather wake up to Alpha 2.0 at age 35 as the typical beta dad with income, debts, kids and a sexless wife, than wake up at age 35 as a lonely mild alcoholic with no money who wasted the lat 15 years banging girls and smoking weed. Both of those scenarios are bad, but the first scenario is a more recoverable position in my view. (I actually was the first scenario when I was 35.)
I agree, but you need to talk to the government. It’s out of my hands.
Yes. You have limited freedom during a divorce. Your goal during a divorce is to get the legal proceedings done as quickly and as cheaply as possible, then pay off your alimony as fast as possible, which is now more difficult thanks to Shithead Trump who just removed the tax detection for men with alimony payments. (Thanks, Trump supporters!)
I can’t reward / encourage any underage posters here in any way. Again, if you don’t like it, talk to big government, not me.
Right on man!
I’m still on damage control, dealing with fallout from “plan A” even though I did not really have fun in my teens and twenties. (I could’ve but that’s another story… I had a great plan…haha)
Stay out of debt at all cost, unless it is a meaningful investment. If you have disposable funds throw them at real estate instead of expensive flashy crap, you’ll be better off both in short and long run!
Wow. In the US you have to tax alimony payments?? I.e. the money that’s already been taxed once when earned and now is only being shared within a family? In what universe…
signed: a shocked European
In the universe of the Collapsing USA.
Most European nations don’t have alimony at all since Europeans tend to be a little more sane regarding the concept of marriage, but economically Europe is collapsing even faster than the USA.
Enjoy the decline!
I’ve been failing at one business after another since I was 20 years old and this year has been my best year as a lot has been coming together in a lot of ways.   (38 now)
Still, even with all of the immense challenges I have faced, you simply can’t trade it for the world vs the drone life provided to you by progressive colleges.
Most of the people I know follow Plan A and BD correctly refers to it as “The Prison” if you buy his E-book.
The inmates whine, but few will muster the courage to smash through the fucking cell or even take the time to examine the confines of their surroundings.
Yes!!! (not even close)
– more money
– more women
– more freedom
– more overall energy
I do not follow ALL the requirements of the typical Alpha 2.0 (still setting up my own business), but I have:
– zero debt outside my house mortgage
– 6 months savings in liquid assets
Currently working on steps 4 and 5.
Look, most guys in their 20s are full of shit (I know because I was too). They are easily influenced by the “group”. Everybody is going to college, partying and having fun, so you should do that too right? Of course not! Be smarter than those fuckers. Set up the foundation for your wonderful life now! You’ll save at least 10-15 years of hard unfruitful work when you’re older.
@pancake mouse
I had a very happy childhood up to 17 that even included great sex experiences.
Got involved in a religious cult at 18 and wasted a lot of years being a moron. Still managed to get a degree, good jobs, married, four kids and start a successful business during that time though so not a complete waste. But although there were lots of good things, I was not really very happy during this time.
Split with wife after 20 years marriage and started to go my own way. Most amazing fun journey of my life.
About to turn 50 and the last 10 years have been so much fun its insane. I’m stronger than I’ve ever been and close to as fit as I’ve ever been in my life. Feel physically as good as I’ve ever felt in my life. Last 3 years have been the best of my life by a massive margin. Plus I’m insanely excited for the next 10 years.
Work hard now. 3-5 years is nothing if you can set yourself up for your late 30’s early 40’s. You will have ten times more fun in your 40’s if you have money and freedom than anyone in their 20’s 0r 30’s can have trying to work and play at the same time.
Look I think looking back is much easier, hindsight and all that.
Of course if you read this blog and you are in your 20s or teens, grab a notebook and pencil.
In terms of college, yes it’s unnecessary. Particularly if you want to be self employed. However if you don’t have the gut and risk appetite for that, I think there are smart ways of doing college. Ways that most people ignore.
I ended up going to college and escaping with $4k in debt (financial aid and work-study and finding scholarships and applying for everything). Now true, I studied absolute rubbish, because I thought I could coast on my intelligence and work ethic alone while I “found myself” (jesus). This was before 2008 financial meltdown (well I graduated in 2009 just as shit was hitting fan, couldn’t change my major at that point).
HOWEVER, there are definitely valuable things you CAN learn in college (I didn’t). Engineering, computer science, foreign languages, possibly some other stuff (though I never found the business courses super useful). If you keep your debt low, I think it’s a perfectly fine idea. Aka DEFINITELY not more than $10k in debt for an actual useful degree. $100k for an English major? Yeah that’s the laughable bullshit.
Would you advise putting a percentage of your income in a 401k or simply take what you can get after taxes and invest in something else?
I have conflicting feelings about 401k. They are government instruments, which means I really don’t like them, but they do a match, which is pretty amazing and hard to find anywhere else. So I usually point out both of these things and let guys make their own decisions on them.
I do not have a 401k nor want one.
Thank you for the info. It’s the government aspect that worries me. I have no faith/trust in our government whatsoever and feel very torn contributing so much to my “retirement plan”. I wonder if I’ve found the right blogger? Hah!
Found myself reading this again and again… great post.