It’s called Carry the Fire.

This project is the natural outgrowth of much of what I’ve been writing about for years. Most notably that young people need more than information. They need formation.

To make it easier to explore, I’m making the first three lessons available to everyone. They’ll give you a good sense of what the program is and how it works.

If it resonates, the remainder of the program is fully included with a paid subscription. Just $5 per month or $40 per year.

Carry the Fire is built primarily for fathers and sons, though coaches and mentors can use it just as naturally with a small group—as I did with a group of young men that I coached. That experience was the foundation for everything I’ve built here.

At its heart, it’s an attempt to recover the kind of formation that every young person needs—the conversations, challenges, and mentorship that help launch someone well.

It isn’t really meant to be consumed like an online course. It’s a framework for intentionally walking that path together.

I hope you’ll take a look.

Carry the Fire!

Shane

Share

Use the hyperlinks to quickly navigate to any Carry the Fire Foundations post:

A Letter to Mentors

Mentor Guide

Part I: A New Lens

Lesson 1: The Choice & The Call

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 2: Being Human in the 21st Century

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 3: The Big Questions

• Challenge and Assignment

Part II: Training as a Way of Life

• Resources: Physical Training Supplementary Materials

Lesson 4: Training as a Way of Life

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 5: Action is a Superpower

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 6: Habit, Behavior Change, and Follow Through

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 7: Belief, Placebo, and Mental Limits

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 8: Training the Mind, Feeding the Right Wolf

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 9: Cognitive Biases and The Rationalizing Mind

• Challenge and Assignment

Part III: A Deeper Why

Lesson 10: What Do You Stand For: The Rationalization Rabbit Hole

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 11: The Ideal

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 12: Values

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 13: The Paradox of Choice

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 14: Transformative Experiences

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 15: Rites of Passage

• Challenge and Assignment

• Rite of Passage Planning Guide

• Mentor Guide (read before returning from Rite of Passage)

Lesson 16: Carry the Fire

• Brotherhood Ceremony Mentor Script

• Carry the Fire 10 Rules and Code

• The Expectations/Standards of Conduct

• Continuing to Feed the Right Wolf (Book List and More)

Resources

• Physical Training Supplementary Materials

• Rite of Passage Planning Guide

• Mentor Guide (read before returning from Rite of Passage)

• Carry the Fire 10 Rules and Code

• The Expectations/Standards of Conduct

• Continuing to Feed the Right Wolf (Book List and More)

Lesson 6 Challenge

Now it is time for you to determine an area you want to take control of in your life.

This week, take a hard look at your paths:

• your phone

• your routines

• your social environment

• your physical space

For each, ask yourself:
What is the default path of my current systems? What is that path pulling me to do? How could I intentionally craft another path?

Now make a plan:

• Decide what you want.
  
  

• Get painfully clear about the next action.
  
  

• And shape your environment so the right behavior happens by default.

Finally, if you have a new habit you would like to implement, you’ll get some help from this week’s assigned reading: How to Build a New Habit: This is Your Strategy Guide

Read more

—William James

Read more

Read more

Read more

Read more

Read more

Before beginning Lesson 4, complete the Fitness Testing Battery and record your results in your Carry the Fire Journal. Then use these materials to select or build a training plan that fits your experience level, equipment, and goals.

Remember, the objective is not simply to get stronger. It is to cultivate the discipline of consistently doing hard things. Train with excellence, record your progress, and carry the fire!

Read more

Lesson 3 Challenge

Continue to take a one-minute cold shower each day. Consider extending the time.

Next lesson you will begin a four-day-per-week physical training practice. If you already have a program or train with a sports team that meets this requirement, however, we will be recommending finding one day per week to train with your mentor.

In preparation for this addition, take some time to figure out exactly when you will train.

What days of the week? (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday is often best but some people really like a Saturday workout as well).

Where? (Bodyweight workouts at home are fine---I have a plan for that in the Lesson 4 Physical Training Supplementary Material).

And when? (Morning schedules are often the most reliable).

Fitness Testing Battery

In addition, before the next lesson go through the following fitness tests and record your times, reps, etc. for the Fitness Testing Battery. This can be found in the Physical Training Supplementary Materials.

By assessing before and after a program, you can have a more accurate sense of your current fitness level. This gives you better insights to drive goals over time and a better sense of the effects of each workout program.

For each fitness test, try not to cheat the technique in any way. Tests are only useful insomuch as they are standardized to accurately assess a current state of fitness.

Please ensure you do the following test, adhering to strict technique requirements:

• Strict Pull-ups (fully extend arms; chin fully over the bar; no kipping)

• Push-ups to failure (lower chest to a tennis ball or fist; fully lock out at top each time)

• Broad Jump

• Sit-ups in 2-minutes

• 1 Mile Run for time

Please record results in your Carry the Fire Journal.

Optional Additional Tests to Record

• DB Bodyweight Farmer’s Carry

• 20 Yard Shuttle

• Zercher Squat or Bulgarian Split Squat

• Bench Press

Lesson 3 Assignment

Read & Discuss: Get Serious: About Purpose

Lesson 3 Supplemental Materials

• Listen: Michael Easter: Overcome the Comfort Crisis

• Read: Israel’s Blueprint for a Revival of the West

• Read: What School Didn’t Teach Us—Your Place in the World

“What one can be, one must be.” —Abraham Maslow

Next Lesson →

Physical Training Materials →

← Previous Lesson

Lesson 3 – Discussion Questions

Happiness, Growth, and Becoming

1. Major Impressions

What part of this lesson stood out to you the most — and why?

(Not what you necessarily agree with, but what stuck with you.)

2. Happiness Assumptions

Did anything in this lesson challenge how you’ve thought about happiness before?

If so, what idea changed the way you think about it?

3. Hard-Won Satisfaction

Think of a time when you felt deeply satisfied or proud — not because something was easy, but because it was hard.

What made that experience meaningful?

What were you becoming through that experience?

4. The Byproduct Of…

The lesson suggested that happiness often appears as a byproduct of becoming, rather than something we can chase directly.

Does that idea line up with your own experience? Why or why not?

5. The Question

Aristotle asked:

“What is the true nature, function, or goal of a person, relative to which we can say they lived well or badly?”

What do you think that question means in practical terms for your life right now?

6. Your Future Self

When you imagine the best version of yourself five or ten years from now, what qualities stand out the most?

(Not achievements — qualities of character.)

7. Checking Your Alignment

What areas of your life feel most out of alignment with the person you want to become?

(No fixing yet — just noticing.)

8. Where is the Tension?

Modern life often puts our needs in tension with each other — for example:

• connection vs sleep

• social belonging vs discipline

• convenience vs health

Where do you feel these conflicts most strongly in your own life?

9. Junger’s Question

Sebastian Junger asks the question:

“What would you die for — and for whom?”

Answering this can feel forced.

What kinds of experiences, commitments, or responsibilities might help someone discover clearer answers to that question over time?

Great work! Now head to the Lesson 3 challenge and assignment!

Next Lesson →

← Previous Lesson

Lesson 2 Challenge

You will continue your one-minute cold showers this week. You are training your will and your capacity to override that voice in your head that avoids necessary discomfort. Willpower is a muscle. It grows with use.

Shoot for six days per week. Take Sunday off.

In addition to that challenge, I want to challenge you to apply what you have learned today.

Based on your reflection today, what is one change that you want to make?

Positive changes (I want to do X) tend to be more successful than negative changes (I want stop doing Y).

Think of one specific, small environmental change (for example: buying an alarm and charging your phone outside of your bedroom) or specific new behavior you are willing to commit to this week?

Each fellow should state this clearly and out loud. Social accountability is powerful.

Next Week:

• You will be testing and recording your performances on a physical battery. In preparation, make sure you have a journal to track your progress. You will also need a stop watch, a pull-up bar, and a tape measure.

Lesson 2 – Assignment (complete before lesson 3)

Before next lesson, read and discuss:

• Read & Discuss: Why I Traded My Smartphone for an Ax

Lesson 2 – Supplemental Readings & Questions

• Read: The Great Abandonment, Sebastian Junger

• Read: Porn, Pop Tarts, and the Infinite Scroll

• Listen: Sebastian Junger with Russ Roberts (also available on YouTube)

Next Lesson →

← Previous Lesson

Mentor Notes

Remember that the content has to meet each fellow where they are. Talking about the ideas helps them to stick. These questions are not, necessarily, meant to be “answered well.”
They are meant to reveal reality.

If Lesson 1 was the call, Lesson 2 is the lens.

They’ve been given a lens that brings the world into clearer focus and now it’s time to use that lens to go through their lives and make sense of it.

Lesson 2 – Discussion Questions

Being Human in the 21st Century

1. The Big Idea

Which ideas from this lesson changed the way you think about the world?

Did anything challenge your assumptions? Be specific.

2. Lessons From Rat Park

The Rat Park experiment suggested that environment and connection play a powerful role in shaping behavior.

What parts of that story stood out to you most? Where do you see parallels between isolation, overstimulation, or lack of meaning and your current routines?

3. The Human Needs Question

Human beings have a set of foundational needs—movement, sleep, sunlight, real food, connection, purpose, contribution, and challenge.

Which of these needs are you consistently meeting in your life right now?

Which of those needs are clearly under-met or ignored in your life right now?

4. The Supernormal Stimuli Question

Modern life is full of “supernormal stimuli”—things engineered to hijack our attention and reward systems.

Which of these have the strongest pull on you personally?

(Food, phone, gaming, social media, streaming, shopping, etc.)

5. What Drive is Hijacked?

Every supernormal stimulus taps into a real human drive.

What legitimate human need or desire do you think those stimuli are hijacking in your life?

(Connection, novelty, status, rest, achievement, attraction, etc.)

6. Time for a Redesign

Where in your life are you relying on willpower when the real issue may be your environment?

Think about factors like time, location, phone access, food availability, sleep schedule, or social context.

7. Build Your Own Park

If you were designing your own version of “Rat Park,” what changes would improve your environment the most?

Consider:

• one physical change

• one relational change

• one change to your daily rhythm

8. Tracking Your Trajectory

If nothing about your current environment changed for the next five years, where do you think it would lead you?

9. Life’s Momentum

If your environment is shaping you every day, who is it shaping you into?

Is that someone you would respect?

Next Lesson →

← Previous Lesson

Lesson 1 Challenge

Your challenge over the coming weeks is to begin taking a one-minute cold shower each day. You will do this six days per week, taking Sundays off. Don’t worry, this is not a forever challenge. But we will keep this up for a few weeks.

All you have to do is turn the water as cold as it goes and step in. Conquer the hold that comfort has over you. After your minute is up, feel free to turn the dial to warmth.

Take a second to appreciate how amazing a warm shower is. In the scope of human history, almost no one had the ability to get a hot shower. There were no hot water heaters. Comfort was not always accessible.

Mentor notes:

• Discuss this with your apprentice and discuss any thoughts or worries the young man has. Empower him. If he does not understand the merits, insist that understanding sometimes happens after action. Sometimes you just have to commit to a discipline and trust that there will be benefits down the road.

• Soon we will be adding in a challenge to add threefour daily workouts each week. At least one of those we would like to be done together with the mentor and the apprentice(s). See program structuring recommendations for guidance on how to structure the days of your week. Since that has not begun yet, we will have two assigned readings, rather than just one. This allow us to give a little more context up front.

Lesson 1 – Assignment (complete before lesson 2)

Before next lesson, read and discuss:

• Read & Discuss: The Sioux Guide to Mental and Physical Toughness

• Read & Discuss: The Lost Path to Manhood

Lesson 1 – Supplemental Readings & Questions

• Listen: Arthur Brooks on Happiness and Finding the Meaning of Your Life

• Read: Aristotle on How to Live a Good Life

“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied because there are higher and lower forms of pleasure.”

—John Stuart Mill

Next Lesson →

← Previous Lesson

Mentor Notes

Now that you have viewed the first lesson with your fellow(s), it is time to begin. Take your time going through these questions. You want to create space for introspection, growth, and even debate. We are just getting started.

A few guidelines:

• Let silence happen

• Don’t rush

• Don’t rescue

• Don’t moralize

You are not here to correct answers. Just to help each candidate to honestly process and go deeper.

We have 16 lessons. Don’t worry if the fellows don’t see the world just as you’d like. This program will work on them. It is a slow build. Listen openly without making them feel like you want them to give any specific answer.

If a young man says something half-formed or uncomfortable, that’s success, not failure.

If a discussion feels heavy, quiet, or unfinished: Good.

That means the questions are working.

Lesson 1 should not feel resolved. It should feel like something real has been named but is still unclear.

All that said: DO be real. You don’t have to neuter your responses, either. Your fellows need to see the real you and what it is like to work through a life.

You are the leader here. If you want to skip a question, do so. Make this process your own. Trust your instincts.

Share

Lesson 1 – Discussion Questions

1. Hercules’ Choice

In the story, Hercules encounters two paths—one promising comfort and ease, the other demanding effort, discipline, and growth.

What part of that story felt uncomfortably familiar when you thought about your own life?

2. The Comfort Question

Kakia represents the path of comfort—choosing what is easy, pleasurable, and immediately rewarding.

Where does the path of comfort show up most clearly in your daily life right now?

3. Where Are You Going?

Our daily choices rarely feel dramatic in the moment, but over time they shape who we become.

If nothing changed about the habits and choices you’re making today, where do you think that path might lead in five or ten years?

4. The Happiness Question

Kakia claims that happiness comes from avoiding difficulty and pursuing pleasure.

Arete argues that happiness comes from striving, growing, and becoming something greater.

Which view do you find more convincing, and why?

5. The Hard Thing

Many people discover that meaningful moments often come from difficult experiences—training hard, overcoming a challenge, or working toward something demanding.

Can you think of a time when doing something difficult made your life feel more meaningful, even if it wasn’t enjoyable in the moment?

6. What Are You Teaching?

People learn a great deal by watching how others live.

If a younger boy were watching how you live your life right now, what do you think he would learn about what matters most?

7. The Cost of Comfort

Growth often requires stepping into discomfort for the sake of a larger goal.

If someone avoids discomfort whenever possible, how might that limit their success, their relationships, or the impact they have on others?

8. Cold Plunging

In Coach Trotter’s in-person men’s group, meetings often began at 6:00 a.m. with a three-minute cold plunge.

Why do you think a group focused on growth and character might start their meetings this way?

9. The Arete Choice Question

Choosing Arete rarely begins with dramatic vows. It usually begins with small, deliberate actions.

What would choosing the path of Arete look like in one small, concrete way this week?

Next Lesson→

← Previous Lesson

• 16 Lessons

• 3 Phases of Development

• 1–2 Meetings per Week (recommended pace)

• Each session includes:

  • Video

  • Discussion Questions

  • Challenge

  • Short reading assignment

  • Optional Supplementary Material to Go Deeper

Your Role

You are not a facilitator. You are the mentor.

I’ve provided the material but you drive this bus! You set the tone. You bring the standard.

Guiding Thoughts

The goal is not information. It is true formation.

• You lead the conversation

• You control the pace

• You decide what matters most in each session

The videos provide structure. You provide meaning.

What this looks like:

• Pause the video when needed

• Go deeper on what matters

• Connect ideas to real life

• Reference past conversations

• Call out and celebrate growth when you see it

Discussion Guidelines

• Let silence happen

• Don’t rush

• Don’t rescue

• Don’t moralize

• Don’t feel bound to the script

• Don’t feel pressure to “cover everything”

Focus on Depth > completion

You are not here to give answers. You are here to help them think.

Weekly Rhythm

Option 1 (Recommended)

2x per week (8 weeks at 45–60 min per session)

• Tuesday (start the week strong)

• Friday (energizing ideas heading into weekend)

Option 2

1x per week (16 weeks at 60 min per session)

These are just suggestions. Choose the rhythm and days that best fit you and your fellow(s)

What You Need

To support them as they go through the program, I recommend that fellows have:

• Notebook (required) – Have fellow(s) watch each lesson with a pen in hand

• Folder or binder (recommended)

• Print readings each week (preferred, but optional)

The Path Ahead

The injunction to “Know thyself” was carved at the entrance to Apollo’s temple at Delphi.

At its most fundamental level, that is what the Carry the Fire Foundations program wants to help young men do—to know themselves, really, so they can then fully step into the person they were meant to be.

Share

Phase I: A New Lens

• This phase seeks to give the fellows a new lens for how they understand themselves and other humans. This is a reframe of the human condition. We want to reframe how fellows see themselves and the world and lead them to a renewed sense of mission to become who they are meant to become.

• Introduce first challenges/practices:

  • Assigned reading

  • Cold showers (beginning in lesson two and going through lesson seven)

  • Week 3 Fitness Battery Self-Assessment (it may be a good idea to look ahead at this battery)

Phase II: Self-Mastery

• This phase of the program includes lessons four through nine. It is a much more practical and applied look at self-mastery. We explore how humans work so that fellows cultivate the skills to understand themselves, and others, and to cultivate the skills to take control of their lives. This includes mindset, habits, environmental design, choice architecture, and many other essential topics. It begins with physical training and the link between the physical and the mental.

• Introduce consistent physical training practice (week 4)

  • It may be wise to look ahead at this so that you are best able to support the fellow in setting this up.

  • There are a lot of documents in the Physical Training Supplementary Material to support you and your fellow(s).

Phase III: Formation

• In phase 3, fellows dig deeper to discover the real why behind their pursuit of excellence. Here they will develop a deeper sense of purpose and a keener sense of the risk inherent in unintentional living. This phase includes a clarification of what it means to Carry the Fire and prompts to help them along the Way of Excellence. It culminates with a Rite of Passage that marks their completion of the foundations and confers a new status as Brothers and Arete Men.

• Lessons 15 and 16 will require quite a bit of preparation. So look ahead so these don’t sneak up on you.

Mentors Please Plan Ahead For…

Read more

First, thank you. The fact that you’re here says a lot about the kind of man you are—and about the future you’re helping shape.

Mentorship today is often reduced to providing cool experiences and giving cool gifts. To be sure, showing up and investing time matters. But it isn’t enough. Young men don’t just need someone to hang out with—they don’t just need someone to take them to a sporting event and to buy them ice cream and new shoes. They need love—but love that comes with expectations. They need encouragement—but encouragement that calls them upward. They need presence—but presence with conviction. Most of all, they need to see an ideal worth chasing.

Rules alone fall flat. But when a young man sees a clear picture of the kind of man he could become—strong, trustworthy, disciplined, and dependable—he feels the pull. He begins to move toward it.

For most of history, this wasn’t optional. The Greeks had a word for it: Paideia—the process of forming a young person into a fu…

Read more

A Letter to Mentors

Mentor Guide

Physical Training Resources

Part I: A New Lens

Lesson 1: The Choice & The Call

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 2: Being Human in the 21st Century

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 3: The Big Questions

• Challenge and Assignment

Part II: Training as a Way of Life

• Resources: Physical Training Supplementary Materials

Lesson 4: Training as a Way of Life

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 5: Action is a Superpower

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 6: Habit, Behavior Change, and Follow Through

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 7: Belief, Placebo, and Mental Limits

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 8: Training the Mind, Feeding the Right Wolf

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 9: Cognitive Biases and The Rationalizing Mind

• Challenge and Assignment

Part III: A Deeper Why

Lesson 10: What Do You Stand For: The Rationalization Rabbit Hole

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 11: The Ideal

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 12: Values

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 13: The Paradox of Choice

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 14: Transformative Experiences

• Challenge and Assignment

Lesson 15: Rites of Passage

• Challenge and Assignment

• Rite of Passage Planning Guide

• Mentor Guide (read before returning from Rite of Passage)

Lesson 16: Carry the Fire

• Brotherhood Ceremony Mentor Script

• Carry the Fire 10 Rules and Code

• The Expectations/Standards of Conduct

• Continuing to Feed the Right Wolf (Book List and More)

Resources

• Physical Training Supplementary Materials

• Rite of Passage Planning Guide

• Mentor Guide (read before returning from Rite of Passage)

• Carry the Fire 10 Rules and Code

• The Expectations/Standards of Conduct

• Continuing to Feed the Right Wolf (Book List and More)

Share