#186 - The Barbarian in You: Vigor, Wonder, and Fellowship | Ed Hinman
Ed Hinman graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, played four years of college football, served eight years in the Marine Corps, earned a master's degree in history, and has spent the last seventeen and a half years in public figure protection at Gavin de Becker & Associates. On paper that reads like a straight line. It was not.
In this conversation, Ed lays out the idea behind his book, The Barbarian in You: we inherited bodies and nervous systems built for vigor, wonder, and fellowship, and almost everything about modern life pulls us away from all three. Vigor is physical effort and the state change that follows it. Wonder is the spiritual and imaginative side, the part you reach through nature, art, reading, or belief. Fellowship is the one Ed says we are losing fastest, especially men.
Ed explains why he redefines barbarian as anyone who lives with those three things, which is how a book about Julius Caesar and the Battle of Hastings also has chapters on Ralph Waldo Emerson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and David Lee Roth.
The turn in the conversation comes when Ryan asks where Ed's self-trust came from. Ed describes standing at a service academy career conference, surrounded by employers who wanted to hire him, feeling like a product on a shelf. He went home and told his wife he would rather eat baloney cereal than take one of those jobs. Ryan shares his own version of that moment, finishing an MBA and realizing he had completed somebody else's checklist.
They also get into the part most conversations about this skip. Ed does not tell anyone to quit. He says there is honor in doing work you do not want to do so you can provide for your family, and then moves the question to the hours you actually control. What are you doing at home?
The back half turns to men, fellowship, and resistance. Ed's advice on checking in on a struggling friend is two words long, and it is the most useful thing in the episode.
In this conversation:
- Why vigor, wonder, and fellowship are described as nature's rules rather than a self-improvement goal
- What Ed means by redefining the word barbarian, and why the Germanic tribes turned down Roman roads
- Following a history degree with no idea how it would pay off, and how writing became the vehicle for his career
- Trusting yourself when the credential you earned turns out to be someone else's plan
- Why Ed romanticizes his own life on purpose, and what he pictures when he lifts
- Resistance as a signal rather than an obstacle, from Steven Pressfield's The War of Art
- The two-word answer to "I do not want to bother him"
Connect with Ed Hinman Book: The Barbarian in You: Living With Vigor, Wonder, & Fellowship, available in hardback, paperback, and Kindle on Amazon Website and blog: https://www.barbarianinyou.com
Connect with Ryan Watts Website: https://www.ryanwattscoaching.com The Personal Success Podcast: https://www.ryanwattscoaching.com/thepersonalsuccesspodcast Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-personal-success-podcast-with-ryan-watts/id1699785392 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0poXmaxpjA6ViNDy1KOh9c YouTube: https://youtube.com/@thepersonalsuccesspodcast LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanwattsmba
New conversations every Monday.