I haven’t shared too much of my story in these articles, mostly because I’m a very private person and don’t want to make this page about me but about the ideals behind it. Which is also why I write under a pseudonym. But with more than 3.400 people reading these articles, and over 96.000 men following the Instagram page, it seems fitting to share a little bit about myself, so you know who is the man writing these articles, and who stands behind this project.
I am 26 years old. Almost 27 now. Straight after graduating high-school, more than eight years ago, I left my home country and went to study mechanical engineering in Germany. I left my parent's home at 18 years old and went to an entirely new country, where I had no connections and no history. I remember how excited I was about this new adventure, and while I eventually decided to go back home, it was undoubtedly a huge blessing, because it forced me to grow as a man and kickstarted my self-improvement journey.
A time for growth
I was very much alone during the time that I was there, and at first, I really enjoyed it. At that point, I wasn’t really the best socially. I wasn’t bad either, just average. I made some spanish-speaking friends quite easily —spanish is my first language— but when it came to germans and people from other places, it wasn’t that easy. Our culture was too different, and that made it difficult, at that time, to connect on a deeper level.
Eventually, even those somewhat deeper friendships I made hit a plateau, mostly because their only interests were studying and drinking. I don’t blame them though. I think that’s all that most people in college care about. When I decided I wasn’t going to waste my time partying and also decided studying would come after my own personal development, most of my friendships went cold and that meant I spent most of my time alone. Which wasn’t a problem at first. I had never lived alone and it was really cool to have some time for myself.
Actually, I had a lot of time. More than I had ever had. University was easy enough and it didn't require too much effort. Initially, like I mentioned, that free time was spent partying, watching movies, and doing nothing productive. But after a few weeks of this, I felt bored and empty, and decided to focus on other, more productive endeavors.
Enter: The Gym
So I joined a gym. I had lifted weights before but never seriously. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made. It was a gym that was open 24/7, and I loved that because it gave me zero excuses to skip a workout. I could go at any time during the day and complete my training.
Like a proper newbie, I went into bodybuilding.com, ordered some supplements, and found a program to follow. It was called "Project Mass". Maybe you know it. This was around the time when everything was available for free in that website.
I also started counting calories religiously. All my time was spent either working out, eating, or watching motivational videos. I was the biggest fan of David Laid, Connor Murphy, Omar Isuf, Callum von Moger, etc. I became obsessed. And it worked like a charm. I blew up from 70 kg to 84 kg in a year and a half, while becoming fairly strong in the process (450 lbs deadlift, 315 lbs squat, 265 lbs bench press). Yes, I got fat too. Beginner mistake. But I was strong, powerful, and became insanely disciplined.
The gym kickstarted my entire self-improvement journey: I went religiously every single day, even in the middle of winter, even at 4 am if necessary. I did not miss a single training day for a year and a half.
The "Influencer” Ark
After some months, the mental strength I was building + the natural bodybuilding rabbit-hole led me to stat watching right wing content online and finding the masculine self-improvement sphere. It became my new obsession. I ordered a bunch of books about masculinity, productivity, and self-improvement and became an avid reader. I must’ve read somewhere around 2 books per week during that time. This gave my life a whole new direction, and I decided I wanted to become an influencer and make millions of dollars (lol).
So I started posting shirtless pics on my main IG account, and doing follow for follow under every single account that had something to do with fitness. I was dedicated, man. Did it every single hour like clockwork. What nobody ever tells you about discipline is that you can apply it to all kinds of wrong things 😂.
Notice that at this point God was not in the picture. I had always been “catholic” because of my parents, but at this point, living alone, consuming red pill content like a madman, and suddenly getting more interest from women, all I cared about and the things that drove me to try and be better were simple: money and women. Nothing else. That was the whole reason I wanted to become successful fit, and rich. Was that vain? Yes. Do I regret it? No. I think it was a stepping stone to finding out the truth, and surrendering my life to God the way I do now.
Back to the story. I followed and then unfollowed about 100 accounts every hour. And not surprisingly, it worked. The volume was crazy, so I started to grow in followers. Bear in mind, my “content” was just me posting random shirtless pictures at home. Zero value. Just vanity. And of course, the kind of followers I attracted weren’t the best. Mostly weirdos, bots and perverts. It was hilarious. I thought myself an influencer and was just gathering a terrible following. I grew the account like that to over 12k followers. I never truly enjoyed posting content, but the dopamine was too addictive. Around this time it was when most of the people I knew from back home unfollowed me. And understandably so.
This went on for a year and a half. The entire time I was in Germany. And even though my motivations were wrong, I did learn a lot about social skills, masculinity, fitness, money, etc. But I was still just a kid trying to do things for all the wrong reasons.
Going Back Home
Eventually, like I said before, the loneliness of living in a new country which was too different from mine caught up to me, and I made the decision to return to my home country to finish my studies. I had been in monk mode for 18 months, and that eventually does get to you. A man needs friends. I didn’t have any.
So I came back home and joined a big university at my home city. What I first noticed was that everyone was only interested in partying and drinking. And I had separated myself from all that. I had gone down another wrong path, the path of the red-pill, but it was still better than the path of mindless hedonism. I had became more disciplined, stronger, more productive, and smarter. For the wrong reasons, yes, but the benefits were still there. My ego was through the roof at that point. I believed I was superior to absolutely everyone.
And the things I’d learned were in fact serving me well. My grades were excellent, I kept building my physique, and the people around me looked up to me. At that point I thought: "All the things I’ve learnt could be useful to others, and I’ve always liked writing, so why not write a book?”
My First Attempts at Writing
So I did. I wrote 3 books, in fact. I published them myself and sold in total probably around 100 copies. Not best-sellers, by any means. One of them was a book about weight training for beginners, another was a book with strategies to become more productive, and the last one was a book about building a strong and disciplined mindset. Reading them now, I see how much my writing has improved. I eventually turned them into ebooks and started selling them for cheap as part of the value offering of Simple Men. I don’t promote them at all but if you want to check them out, you can do it here:
This interest in writing eventually turned into a full-on publishing company that I started with a friend. Made some money there but nothing special.
I started many projects during my college years, but I had never committed to one the way I'm committed to this project right now. But I do believe every failure, every distraction, and every single thing I did, right or wrong, for the past seven years, was a necessary lesson that allowed me to finally find a clear direction and find something that brings me fulfillment and that I believe adds value to the world.
Straight after college, I joined a startup as my first job, and started the Simple Men Blog on the side. The rest, as they say, is history.
This article is now long enough, so we’ll leave it at that for now. If you guys are actually interested in learning more about my story, and this post gets some decent engagement, I’ll write a second post, detailing how Simple Men came to be and how it became what it is today, as well as other important things about my life, regarding relationships, business, etc. For now, I believe this article is a good enough summary that also allows you to get to know me a bit better.
That's all I wanted to share for today.
God bless you and thanks for being here,
Simple Man