100th EPISODE SPECIAL: THE SPARTAN KING (For Massive Motivation!)

0:00 Welcome to the Unapologetic Man Podcast, the only podcast that's all about self-improvement, confidence, success, women, and being a man without making any apologies for it. What is up, guys? Welcome to the 100th freaking episode of the UMP. I cannot believe we are already at 100 episodes, and I gotta tell you, I got an absolutely awesome one for you. I have literally been planning this since about episode 50. I wrote it and rewrote it several times, and what this is, is it's a visualization. So I'm going to take you through the most epic freaking scene ever of a Spartan battle, where you're going to be in the ranks just freaking dominating the enemy, and you're going to be in there 100%.

0:49 This visualization is going to take you all through it. I'm including music. This thing is really badass. I'm super freaking pumped about it. So what I suggest you do is you can just listen to it now if you're doing something else, but maybe if it gets you as fired up as I hope it will, you can listen to it with your eyes closed and really visualize yourself there in the moment, and it's going to give you a massive, massive pump of motivation. I myself intend to use this before I work out, but just check it out, man.

1:14 I hope you love it as much as I do, and I want to thank you guys so much for being listeners. It really means the world to me. This podcast has really changed my life, man. It allows me to communicate with you guys all over the world, and I get emails all the time just full of appreciation, and man, I just appreciate it so much back. So I created this for you guys. I hope you love it, and I hope it's useful for you, and keep listening, brother.

1:43 I do appreciate you, and I continue delivering content into episode 200, 300, 500. I'm going to keep on with this. It's been so gratifying. So here we go, guys. Let's dive into it. You look to your right, and you see hundreds of warriors lined up shoulder to shoulder. Each man is holding a shield, a spear, and a bronze helmet with a horsehair crest. The line stretches a mile long, each man holding his spear at high port, making a spike fence that's absolutely still in the breeze. You look to the left, and it's the same thing.

2:29 500 warriors dressed in bronze, sweat, and scarlet red cloaks. You at the very center of the line. You look down, and you see your shield in your left hand, and your helmet in your right. Slowly, you put on your helmet. It feels sturdy and true. The smell of polished bronze, oiled leather, and years of preparation fill your heart with confidence, courage, and love of the fight. You hear the wind going through the horsehair mohawk on your helmet. The traverse horsehair crest of a Spartan king. You step out in front of your army and turn around.

3:07 You're immediately taken by the glistening sun coming off the polished bronze shields and Corinthian-style helmets. The eyes of the helmets are stark black like some expressionless demonic army, ready to bring on the coming mill of slaughter. The sight of this army, your brothers that you've known since you were a child, fills your heart with courage, pride, and love. You notice every head is turned towards you now, waiting for your words, waiting for your leadership. You hold up your left arm, your shield arm, and yell, this is my shield, and at once the entire army of 50,000 voices joins yours.

3:38 This is my shield. I bear it before me into battle, but it is not mine alone. It protects my brother on my left. It protects my city. I will never let my brother out of its shadow, nor my city out of its shelter. I will die with my shield before me, facing the enemy. At this, the army starts marching. You turn around, wait a few moments, then you get absorbed into the mass of moving men. This is the Spartan Phalanx, a tightly packed group of warriors with a line of shields across the front.

4:11 50 shields deep, 1,000 across. You at the very center. You and your army march in perfect unison. Each step drilled tens of thousands of times. A mass of men so fluid and well-rehearsed, they become one. All the me's, all the I's, all the us's, they all become you, shoulder to shoulder with your brothers. With one beating heart. The phalanx is so smooth, so seamless, it moves over the battlefield like water. Now from the ranks rises the hymn of Apollo. 50,000 throats sing in the Spartan song of battle. And on the climatic beat of the second stanza, heaven shining brother, sky born hero.

4:50 The spears of the first three ranks, including your spear, snap from the vertical into the attack. You can feel the weight of the helmet on your head. You can feel your footsteps marching in perfect beat to the trumpeters. You can see the enemy in front of you, out the eye slits of your helmet. You hear your breath, you feel your heart pounding. There they are, just a half a mile across the field, that's smooth as a school teacher's desk. The enemy, now full of piss and vinegar, and no longer able to be held by their officers, lets out a deafening battle cry that echoes off the adjacent mountains.

5:26 They start to charge. The ground shakes like an earthquake. Your army keeps marching in perfect order. Not even one warrior so much as flinching at this otherwise terrifying sight. The enemy, now getting closer, is charging at a full sprint. Your army keeps walking. You can see the whites of the enemy's eyes, yet your army keeps walking. Then, as if in slow motion, your two armies collide. It's like being hit with a mountain. The thunderous crunch of shield upon shield echoes across the battlefield, like 10,000 thunderbolts striking at once.

6:06 The weight of their entire force is now pressing on your shield and the shields of your brothers down the line. The warrior behind you pushes his shield into your back, and the man behind him pushing his shield into his back, the same thing all the way back through the ranks. The pressure is unbearable. You can hardly breathe as you're pinned between two pushing armies. But you're trained for this. The mind has many different rooms, some of which you should never enter. Fear is such a room, and the solution to fear is action.

6:34 You and your army find its footing and begin to push. The spartan trumpeters, who stand at the very back of the line, start calling out the beat. Step by step, you begin to move forward. Shield to shield and eyeball to eyeball with the enemy, the raw strength of the entire spartan army, pushing their king from behind. The spear tips of your brothers from behind you hum past your helmet over and over again, killing men so fast they seem to disappear into the ground before you. Step by step this continues, your feet now walking on the slithering forms of the dead and dying.

7:10 You glance to the right and you see the traverse horsehair crest of your best friend, Aristodemus. Your brother that you've known since as long as you can remember. The left side of his shield overlapping yours, protecting your blind spot, keeping you safe in its shadow, as your shield is doing for your brother on your left. This wall of brawn protects your army as it advances. Step after step, thrust after thrust, your spear tip now dripping with the blood and guts of the enemy. On and on it continues, the burning in your shoulders, the quaking in your thighs.

7:39 The pain is a gift of unmovable determination. "I will die before I quit," you say. Suddenly you feel the pressure of the foe give way before you. A shout, half of joy and half of awe springs from the throats of your brothers. The enemy are losing their courage and some of them are turning to run. The spartan phalanx breaks up, each man to fight on his own merits. You break your spear off in the gut of some bearded mercenary and draw your xephos, your spartan sword.

8:08 Left and right you're slaying the enemy with the swordsmanship you've been practicing non-stop since you were three years old. You kill three enemies so fast the last guy is dead before the first two hit the ground. Then some giant from the enemy 4 rankers catches you unaware, slamming you over the head with his battle hammer. You fall to the ground, blood pouring from your face, helmet tumbling into the fray. Just as you peer up to see his hammer coming down on your head, delivering the final blow that will surely send you to hell, the shadow of a spartan shield falls over you.

8:43 The hammer slams into it then a bigger, ghastlier thud lands on top of you. Wiggling out from under the body of this enemy giant. You're pulled up by one of your brothers. It's Aristodemus, looking like a god made of muscle and bronze. With the blood sprayed grin he says, "Now's no time to take a nap brother." You both laugh and enter back into the fray. On and on the fighting continues. You break three swords, cave in at least five shields, and plunge discarded spears into the faces of so many the enemy.

9:14 You can hardly decipher reality from some never ending nightmare. Your wound is open on your head, your skull shining naked to the sun. But you know it's not fatal, so you take a sick pride in it. At last, the trumpeters sound victory. Your limbs quake and tremble as you fall to your knees. Many of your brothers do the same. Having exerted feats of physical prowess that go beyond anything remotely possible were it not for war. The army begins to gather around you. You rise to your feet and very slowly, very methodically, raise your sword to the sky.

9:47 Not with arrogance, not with self-aggrandizement, just the humble acknowledgement of victory. Without a word, all your brothers do the same. We score the life of leisure, laziness, and weakness, you say. We've instead enrolled ourselves in the academy of discipline and sacrifice. And now we have this: victory, not over the enemy, but victory over the enemy within ourselves. What man wouldn't give everything dear to him to stand with us now? And now with your intention, I want you to float that Spartan King off the battlefield and into your body as you're listening to this right now.

10:29 Feel the pride of confronting your fears with a full courageous heart. Feel the satisfaction of moving into your pain willingly and rising above your fears to live a life that is worthy of you as a man. Paint the inside of your body with this feeling and let it seep into every cell of your being. What is a warrior? It's a man who fights regardless of the battle that lays before him. And now I ask you, brother, what is your fight? What are you willing to sacrifice for?

11:04 What is worth the pain for you to achieve? You have a warrior inside you, so let that warrior fight. Thank you for listening.

This transcript was made automatically, so a few words may be off.