It’s all on you.

There’s something nobody tells you when you decide to change your life: it doesn’t feel like a breakthrough. It feels like total failure. Not just once, but consistently, over and over, in slow motion, to a sprawling cinematic soundtrack composed by Thom Yorke — while the world carries on around you as if nothing happened.

Twelve years ago, at 40, I made a decision — a line-in-the-sand moment. I decided to take full responsibility for who I was and how I acted in every area of my life. No more excuses. No more outsourcing blame. It was time to retire the mess of a man I had become, and take full responsibility for the man I needed to become next. I knew it would cost me. And it did. What followed wasn’t a string of wins — it was a long succession of failures. Painful. Revealing. Enlightening. Necessary.

It’s an ongoing project. For twelve years I’ve been failing forward. Letting go of illusions. Shedding roles. Stripping down the false self. Each failure asked the same question: own this, or give up?

And each time, I pushed on. I took the hit. I regrouped. I moved forward. Slowly. Consciously. Deliberately.

Real change feels like defeat before it looks like progress. Because we’ve been conditioned to equate struggle with weakness. To believe that if you’re not winning, you’re not a complete man.

But what if being a real man isn’t about control — it’s about capacity? The capacity to feel pain and still act with purpose. The capacity to own your decisions, even the messy ones. The capacity to stand up not once, but again and again, as many times as it takes.

This past week, I found myself in two very different conversations — one inside our Useful Men group, the other in a one-to-one session with a client. Both touched the same quiet crisis: men are disappearing. Not physically. Existentially.

In the group, a man spoke about how easy it is to drift — to become useful to everyone but himself. In the session, another confessed he no longer recognised the man he was trying so hard to be. Two separate stories, same thread. The slow erosion of self beneath duty, noise, and distraction.

What we do in Useful Men is create the space to notice that disappearance — and begin the work of returning. But more on that in due course…

Men are quitting on themselves. Not because they’re broken. Because they’re disconnected — from purpose, from truth, from the responsibility that builds real strength.

We must reframe this discussion. Responsibility has nothing to do with blame. It’s the refusal to retreat. It’s the decision to respond to life as it is, not as we wish it to be. That’s what separates men who build from men who drift.

We are living in a culture that’s endlessly critical of masculinity. Using terms like ‘Toxic Masculinity’ really isn’t helping. Clipping criminal antiheroes like Andrew Tate alongside intellectuals and key male figureheads like Jordan Peterson — and then offering no real advice on what to do next. So many men today are left second guessing. Flattening their instincts. Dulling their edges. Retreating from reality.

But the answer isn’t withdrawal — it’s leadership. Not of others. Of yourself.

To be a man is to take responsibility for how you feel and how you act. It’s not about perfection. It’s about presence. It’s about doing the next right thing, even if you’re scared or ashamed or tired. It’s about learning how to fail with intent — and still move forward with conviction.

Masculinity needs a new story. Not softening. Not shrinking. Strength is not the absence of emotion. It’s the ability to hold emotion without letting it define you. Vulnerability isn’t weakness — it’s clarity. And from that clarity, we lead.

I’m proud to say I have spent twelve years learning how to fail with purpose, consistently and with discipline.

Every failure — it’s all me. But so are the results of the action I take. Every loss. Every rebuild. Every win. That’s the shift in mindset. From victim to victor.

So if you’re stuck, if you’re hiding from your own reflection when you look in the mirror, if you’re giving up instead of digging in — this isn’t judgement.

Start failing with purpose. Start owning it. Don’t be afraid to start again.

The modern man isn’t broken. He’s just forgotten what he’s meant to be.

Brother - Don’t be afraid to be a failure — because from this comes broken, fully formed, purposeful men.

So today, this one’s for me — and for Aaron.

In a few days, we’ll both stand on the start line of Last One Standing. — an ultra-endurance race with no finish line. One loop every hour, on the hour, until only one man remains. You stop when you can’t go again. I’ll be facing twelve hours. Aaron twenty-four. Two men, two distances, same truth. We’re not running to win. We’re running to find out what remains when everything else is stripped away.

Maybe there’ll be pain. Maybe an injury. Maybe something tears deep inside — a ligament, a thought, a belief. Maybe we won’t finish. But we’ll go until we’re stopped. And if we’re stopped, it’ll be by something bigger than doubt.

Because that’s what this is really about. To stand there — willingly, awake, unafraid — knowing failure isn’t the end, it’s the evidence that we tried.

If we fall short, what a beautiful failure that will be.