From Lonely to Unbreakable: A New Code for Young Men in the 21st Century

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about two things: purpose and the power of connection.

Young men today are dealing with a world that feels increasingly lonely and unpredictable. I see it in my own house, and I recently listened to the Oprah podcast featuring Scott Galloway, in which they addressed the alarming truth that many young men are feeling lost and isolated, and that anger is often the only acceptable emotion they can express publicly. Galloway’s analysis focused on the crisis of loneliness, the struggle for economic viability, and the critical void of positive male role models. In my life, my mission is to showcase not just that positive male figure but that positive BLACK MALE FIGURE.

This robust, necessary conversation hits close to home, reminding me of my own journey—from growing up in Brooklyn to navigating the military and feeling lost searching for my own purpose.

The urgency of this crisis has led me to conversations with men who are living examples of a better path. I am incredibly excited about my upcoming episode with my high school classmate, Shaun Murphy, also known as Mister Motivation, the Global Book Award-winning author of Unbreakable Valor. Shaun, like me, is not a stranger to this struggle. He saw the same lack of direction and confidence in men and decided to create a blueprint for a D.I.Y. life.

For every young man struggling with where to go next or how to get started, this blueprint, which is now being reinforced by the wisdom of others, offers a new code built on three key principles: Clarity of Vision, Service-Minded Mastery, and Relentless Action.

The Three Voices of a New Code

The wisdom in this new code comes from three powerful sources: Scott Galloway (identifying the problem), Shaun Murphy (the blueprint), and my recent, profound conversation with my friend Nick Hewitt (the application and emotional wisdom).

1. Define Your Fears, Not Your Goals (The Power of Clarity)

Scott Galloway noted that a huge hurdle for young men is the fear of rejection, which keeps them from taking necessary risks. Shaun’s first central principle directly addresses this inaction.

In my upcoming conversation with Shaun, he challenged me to stop defining my goals and instead define my fears and calculate the cost of inaction. What is the price you will pay in 5 or 10 years if you don’t pursue that degree, launch that business, or ask for that opportunity? Procrastination is just fear in disguise. By identifying the real, tangible cost of standing still, you build the Courage and Clarity necessary to overcome discomfort. As Shaun says, “Nothing changes if nothing changes.”

2. Chase Mastery and Service, Not Capital

The Oprah podcast discussion highlighted the economic struggles and the importance of being an “economically viable” man in society. Shaun has a powerful, counterintuitive take on this: Stop chasing money. Instead, chase mastery and purpose.

Shaun broke down the “Money” M of his Five M’s of Success by stating that the true secret to wealth is giving. When you lead with giving, give your best work, your time, and your kindness. Success will return to you tenfold. This ties perfectly into Scott Galloway’s advice: kindness is a secret weapon and a key attribute of true, protective masculinity.

My recent conversation with Nick Hewitt demonstrated this principle beautifully. Nick explained that his purpose-driven work—helping people in civil service—found new meaning when he realized it aligned with his “love language” of service. For Nick, true success means knowing you have put your best effort into something, regardless of the outcome, because the real win is the lesson and experience gained along the way. When you focus on mastering a skill and serving others, the capital will follow.

3. Embrace the Hazing with Massive Movement and Grace

Galloway stressed that the ability to endure rejection is the true superpower and that “No is the path to wonderful yeses.”

Shaun calls the struggle, all of the No’s, a necessary “hazing” that sharpens your “sword” and prepares you to lead. When you face setbacks—a lost job, a failed relationship, or debt—the natural inclination is to scale back your vision. Shaun’s call to Massive Movement is the antidote: Don’t shrink your goal, increase your action. Apply the 4 C’s—Commence, Commit, Be Consistent, and Complete—and operate at a 10x effort level until you’ve punched through the wall.

This intense effort must be supported by self-compassion. As Nick Hewitt pointed out, this kind of relentless action requires two crucial habits: consistency and patience. Most importantly, it requires grace. We need to give ourselves grace, allowing room for mistakes and learning from our “screw-ups” without beating ourselves up. This shift in mindset, from focusing on the outcome to valuing the lessons learned, provides the emotional grace needed to sustain Massive Movement.

This internal work also highlights the need for safe spaces for men to be vulnerable, let things out, and not be judged as weak.

The code for an unbreakable life isn’t a secret formula; it’s a commitment to this internal work, being vulnerable enough to admit you’re lost, courageous enough to define your fears, and kind enough to lead with purpose. What is presented is a blueprint for taking extreme ownership of your life and moving from feeling like a victim of circumstances to becoming its architect.

This is the Massive Movement that Shaun Murphy stresses in the Five M’s of Success, freeing us from the mental constraints that prevent us from simply having fun—a theme I’ve been exploring. When we master these principles, intelligent automation enhances our freedom, rather than dictates our purpose.

To dive deeper into the blueprint for this mindset shift and the connection between personal growth and professional achievement, keep an eye out: my full, in-depth episode with Shaun Murphy, Mister Motivation, will be available soon.

The referenced conversation with Nick Hewitt: EP 04: | Catching Up With Nick

Why Young Men are Struggling Now with Oprah and Scott Galloway: https://youtu.be/E5l6sWqVpuw?si=GIhS2frXSSPEXe5r 

Extreme Ownership by Jakko Wilkins andLeif Babin: https://a.co/d/dzHGXy3

EP 04: Catching up with Nick

I sat down with my long-time friend, Nick Hewitt, following a memorable “guys trip” that inspired this episode. I wanted to catch up with him and share his insights with all of you.

Nick shared his professional journey with me, which involved a significant shift after he was laid off from his corporate logistics role of 15 years. He eventually moved into public service in city water management. This transition led to an “aha moment” when he realized his current customer service role unexpectedly and perfectly aligns with his love language of service. This realization moved his work from a purely financial pursuit to a genuinely rewarding way to help the community.

One of the most powerful points Nick made was how he redefines success. For him, it’s not dependent on the outcome, but on the effort given and the valuable lessons, development, and experience gained in the process. This perspective allows him to see setbacks as lessons learned, not failures. He also highlighted that developing the habit of patience was a major life change that unexpectedly revealed a passion for teaching and mentorship, a role he now fills both at work and in his church. We concluded our discussion by talking about the necessity of having grace for ourselves and others, acknowledging that people are constantly growing and changing, and that mistakes are essential opportunities for growth and preparation.

My Key Takeaways from Catching Up with Nick

  1. Redefine Success as Effort and Experience: Nick shares that true success isn’t about the final outcome or achievement; instead, it’s measured by the effort you apply and the valuable lessons, development, and experience you gain throughout the process.
  2. Align Work with Your Love Language: Nick found fulfillment by ensuring his career—especially his customer service role in water management—aligned with his love language of service, transforming his work into something that gives back and feels purposeful.
  3. Patience Unlocks New Passion: Developing the habit of patience, which he initially needed for his professional role, unexpectedly revealed a passion for teaching and mentorship, a skill he now utilizes across different areas of his life.
  4. Practice Grace for Inevitable Change: Nick stressed the importance of giving both yourself and others grace. He advises looking past “failures” and instead focusing on the lessons learned, knowing that everyone is constantly growing, changing, and needing a safe space to be vulnerable.

Connect with Nick: @hewitt_928

Want more Corey? Follow his blog! http://www.corey-stokes.com

Want to be a future guest? Fill out the following survey! www.corey-stokes.com/the-catching-up-with-corey-project/

Lastly, DM Corey on Facebook Messenger if you want a financial coach. ~ facebook.com/CoreyLeVelStokes

Intro by AlanaJordan. Find more here! www.pixabay.com/music/motown-old-school-rnb-a-piece-of-the-pie-316619/

Outro By ⁨@TheJaReneHealing⁩ and TraumaCenter

Catching up with Corey is a NalahMonet Production, and you can get in contact with them at www.nalahmonet.com

Reflections: The Nexus of Automation and Enjoyment

Welcome to the November edition of Reflections.

There is only one thing that we can count on with 100% certainty in our lives: Change! And the longer you are alive, the more change you will see and experience.

One of the most recent and profound changes we are witnessing today is the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into our daily lives. While our initial inclination may be to resist this change, doing so may not be the best course of action to help us move forward.

Throughout history, major shifts have changed the way we operate on a massive scale. We know them as Revolutions. In my lifetime, I’ve heard talk and read about how the Industrial Revolution and subsequent technological revolutions completely changed industries and lives. But those were the Second and the Third Revolutions. In the book “The AI Republic,” the authors coined the term “the coming Fourth Industrial Revolution” (4IR) to describe this massive movement of AI. And whether we like it or not… change is coming.

What can we do to prepare and handle this change? This month, let’s explore how we can turn this shift from a threat into our biggest opportunity.

Despite the fear of the machines taking over—which on a low scale seems to be where we are now—Skynet is far from being a reality. But what is inevitable, though, is that the way we are operating today will be changed forever. Amid conversations about implementing AI in the workplace, I decided to read “The AI Republic: Building the Nexus Between Humans and Intelligent Automation.” Regardless of where you fall in the argument about an automated society, the fact is we’ve been moving in that direction for more than the last few years. Today, though, we are closer than ever, and the fear that many movies have portrayed is at the forefront of many minds.

The premise of the book argues that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not a threat to human workers, but rather the driving force of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). The book proposes building a “nexus,” or connection, where intelligent automation handles the tedious, repetitive, and analytical tasks.

With technology handling the routine and analytical tasks of everyday work, this frees up human time and energy to focus on uniquely human skills—such as creativity, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and complex decision-making.

  • Mindset: View AI as a Partner, Not a Competitor. The shift in perspective is key: instead of fighting the automation of $80\%$ of routine work, focus on excelling in the remaining $20\%$ of high-value, human-centric tasks.
  • Focus on Unique Human Skills: If AI is going to take over the rote and repetitive tasks, our value shifts entirely to the things it cannot do, such as mastering Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and complex, creative problem-solving.
  • Utilize the Nexus: The “nexus” is that powerful meeting point between human expertise and machine efficiency. This means making a conscious decision to automate the mundane and amplify the human, freeing up your time for goal-free fun.

How do we begin to implement the use of AI so we can learn how to use it effectively?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock lately, I’m sure you’ve seen commercials that exclaim the AI features of a software, or videos explaining how using AI as an advanced Google search is inadequate. One that has flooded my social media says, “People are starting businesses with AI. Why aren’t you?”

Maybe you haven’t jumped on the bandwagon just yet. Perhaps you want to dip your toes into the water, but you aren’t ready to relinquish total control of those repetitive tasks. If so, you are a lot like me. So, I decided to focus my first real implementation on the element I felt was most lacking in my life: Having FUN.

For me, travel used to be all about logistics and financial planning—ensuring the money was available for my family to have fun. My own fun was always secondary. With a well-crafted prompt, I created an AI travel agent to handle the administrative load.

That experience taught me something valuable: Intelligent automation can handle the management, allowing me to focus on the massive movement and pure joy of the activity. I’ve just learned that I can use AI to schedule events on my calendar! WHAAA!!!!

In fact, my upcoming solo trip to Colorado Springs is built on the same principle, freeing me up for goal-free joy, such as hiking through the Garden of the Gods.

While I also use AI as an editor or proofreader, there are some things I actively enjoy and prefer to do myself (like writing). This is just the beginning of cracking the surface of the nexus. How have you implemented the use of AI into your life? Drop me a line—maybe I’ll give your idea a try!

My solo trip to Colorado Springs is a perfect, real-world example of the AI Republic in action. It is the culmination of my desire to return to simply having fun and my willingness to let technology handle the logistics.

The planned activities—hiking through the Garden of the Gods, climbing Pikes Peak, or relaxing in the historic Penny Arcade in Manitou Springs—are all sought for the sake of pure, goal-free enjoyment, not just for a purpose.

This freedom is possible because technology is the silent partner. Simple tools like GPS navigation, digital booking, and itinerary planning took the tedious management and logistics burden off my shoulders. By offloading that cognitive load, I am free to focus completely on the mindset and massive movement of the trip itself. This trip is proof that learning to use modern tools enhances human experiences, rather than dictates them, giving us the freedom to pursue fulfillment.

you can read some of how the trip went in my November 14th post “Why Goal-Free Joy Ultimate Investment You Can Make

Money Tip I Recommend: Automate Your Way to Freedom

I remember when I was first starting out. I was the biggest hindrance to financial success. I’d forget to make payments. I didn’t know what was due and when. And I didn’t have a good grasp on money movement in and out of my account. So, I had to come to acknowledge that I was the problem. One way I was able to do that was by adding some level of automation into my financial process. Through automation, I was able to remove myself from the equation. Despite how I make it appear, I am human and I do make mistakes. At the beginning of my financial life, I made many of them. To the extent that, at a very young age, banks told me I could not open a bank account.

Now, I do not recommend turning your entire financial process over to automation, but there are some steps you can take to start automating and reducing human error. The secret to maximizing your money movement in the Fourth Industrial Revolution is finding the nexus between human strategy and machine execution.

Build the Strategy, Hand Off the Execution

Since you are the sole source of motivation and big-picture mindset, you need to be the one to prepare the budget. This is where your human knowledge, your goals, and your priorities matter most. Once that plan is set, you need to hand off the execution of the routine tasks to a trusted agent.

  1. Preparation (The Human Role): Take the time to sit down and build a simple, realistic budget. This initial strategic move is yours alone.
  2. Automation (The Machine Role): You need a reliable tool to handle the recurring management of your bills. Set up automatic payments through a trusted financial agent, preferably your primary bank or credit union. This ensures the money moves precisely on time, eliminating late fees and the need for monthly mental energy. Set up automatic transfers to savings and investment accounts, too—pay yourself first, and never think about it again.
  3. Monitoring (The Nexus Role): Do not walk away entirely! The automated system handles the massive movement of your money, but a human must monitor the process. This combination of strategy (human), execution (machine), and oversight (human) removes mistakes while keeping you in control of the direction.

How AI Elevates the Process

Beyond simple auto-pay, modern technology has given us powerful tools to refine this process further, moving your money management from reactive to proactive:

  • AI-Powered Budgeting Apps: Use intelligent budgeting apps that categorize transactions automatically and alert you when spending in a certain category is trending higher than average.
  • Projection and Scenario Planning: Use AI tools to ask, for example: “Based on my last six months of spending, if I increased my $401k contribution by $2\%$, how would that affect my liquid cash flow?” This helps you make smarter, massive movement decisions without spending hours on spreadsheets.

By embracing automation for routine payments and leveraging AI for powerful insights, you free up your mind to focus on generating income and, most importantly, enjoying the freedom that comes with financial control.

Professor Stokes: Stokexplanations

This month, I am excited to introduce a brand-new contributor to the newsletter, focusing on simplifying the biggest ideas in business, technology, and success for the next generation: Professor Stokes and his Stokexplanations. You’ve actually seen him on the November 14th blog post. Professor Stokes is dedicated to making sure that the future leaders, creators, and fun-seekers of the world are equipped with a clear mindset for embracing change.

Stokexplanation of the Fourth Industrial Revolution:

Imagine the world is changing super fast, like when a slow old horse and buggy got replaced by a speedy car! Now, the newest and fastest change is called the Fourth Revolution, and its main helper is Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI is like a smart robot assistant who is really, really good at doing all the boring chores and homework—like scheduling appointments or organizing messy papers. We don’t want to fight this smart helper! We want to learn how to be its boss and tell it, “You handle the tedious stuff!” When the robot does our chores, we get lots more free time to go play, explore, go on cool trips like climbing mountains, or just hang out at the arcade. So, the big secret is simple: learn to use the AI assistant so you can have more fun and freedom!

Let’s Talk

The entire theme this month can be summarized by a simple equation: Automation frees up human bandwidth for joy.

As we embrace the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we are not trading our jobs for machines; we are trading tedious management tasks for fulfilling, human-centric lives. We have seen how using an AI “travel agent” frees up planning time for pure enjoyment, and how automating money transfers removes human error, ensuring your money works for you without constant stress.

My upcoming solo trip to Colorado Springs is the proof in the pudding: Technology is enabling me to pursue hiking through Garden of the Gods and relaxing in Manitou Springs—without the anxiety of endless planning. It has enhanced, not dictated, my experience.

So, here is the challenge for you this month:

Identify one tedious task—at work, in your finances, or at home—that you can use a technological tool to automate or take off your plate. Once that task is offloaded, commit to using that newly found time for a moment of pure fun.

Tell me: What is one task you’ve already automated to free up time for fun, or what is the first task you plan to offload this month? Drop me a line!

If you’re ready to take your financial goals seriously and build a solid plan, I’d be happy to help. Schedule a free coaching consultation with me today: https://calendar.app.google/oEyuikwjDLMoPxtf7

If you found this newsletter insightful, please share it with your friends and family! Or better yet, tell them to subscribe.

Let’s spread the word about building a more intentional and fulfilling life.

Resources:

The AI Republic: Building the Nexus between humans and intelligent automation – https://a.co/d/04kYoGg