The Vikings have some lessons in manhood that could be used today by every dude to fulfill their purpose and calling in life and to live like the man they're made to be. Check it out from Chad Howse at Chad Howse Fitness... 1. Accept death with open arms. If death isn’t feared but instead welcomed there’s no limit to what you can accomplish and what you’ll aim to accomplish. Viking explorers ventured into uncharted seas to discover what was not yet known. We not only fear death but we fear the unknown and injury and failure and for shite’s sake we need to stop, and the end will start when we bring our greatest fear into the present. 2. Physical toughness and mental toughness are one in the same. The gym is now our Agoge, our training for physical toughness but also for mental toughness. Where men, both young and old, trained for war we now have to train as if we’re training for war. Of course, some men still actually do train for war and they’re tougher for it, but for those of us not following that path we still have to use our training to incur more than muscles or abs or pecs. 3. Do what can’t be done. There was something about that culture, the Viking’s culture, that wanted more, that didn’t fear death and that allowed them to try what others wouldn’t. They expanded at an incredible rate for such a small culture. Had they not ventured east, Russia as we know it now, would be China. They did what wasn’t supposed to be done but as a culture they didn’t think of it like that. 4. Eat whatever the land provides you with. Our diets are a mess. Science today says this, science tomorrow says that. It’s a joke. What we need is simplicity. Eat what the land provides for you. It seemed to work for the Vikings who had a diet high in meat and vegetables and were massive. The key thing is meat (fish included). Look at their physical development versus the English, whose population grew forcing them to eat food of a lesser quality, or the Asians who were even smaller and had less body hair who ate more soy (estrogenic) and more rice. 5. Your fate is sealed. How you die is a story that’s already written, or so the Vikings believed. And why not believe this? We don’t have control over how we die, so why run from it? Why worry about it or fear it? 6. Hard climates make hard men. The Vikings lived in a very harsh climate where it was hard to grow crops and build colonies and survive. You see it in our modern day as well, where the constant harshness that a climate provides produces men who are tougher and more resilient. That “climate” can be work. Farmers are tough dudes. Cowboys are damn tough. Guys who have to daily persist through physical labor and pain develop a thick skin, literally, and grit to accompany it. 7. Simplify. It’s becoming harder to truly simplify and focus on one thing. There was a time when one thing was pretty much the only thing you could focus on. If you’re sailing, you were sailing, not tweeting or emailing or even reading. If you were farming you were farming, and if you were fighting, well, only a fool would think about something other than his enemy while entrenched in battle. 8. Follow Your Ambitions! Ambition is the calling of your soul. It’s that inner voice telling you where your life should head. For a few great Vikings that meant expansion or becoming king or conquering neighboring tribes. For us, the possibilities are limitless, however, we’re in a weak world where ambition is labeled as a selfish act by people who simply don’t have it, when it’s ambition that has provided us with every medical and technological breakthrough that we now take for granted. Read more at Chad Howse Fitness