A common theme among ambitious men is one thing…
They want to have it all.
They want to reign supreme in multiple arenas of life…
They can’t stand the thought of being average, in anything for that matter.
They don’t want to be one dimensional.
This is a common pattern with everyone I speak with who reads some of the Lethal Gentlemen’s Manifesto work.
They want to run a business or have a high quality career, want to train martial arts, perform at a high level in the gym, have an affluent social network & experience the best life has to offer.
Most people don’t want this.
They are happy & content being one dimensional.
Maybe ambition is a curse?
Specialising in 1 thing, being decent at it, and calling it a day…
So to find advice on building multiple skillsets simultaneously and cramming all of this into a life is one of the most challenging tasks you can set for yourself.
I’ve experienced this multiple times, my interests in martial arts, golf, tennis, swimming, sprinting, running my own business for 5 years, having a new born on the way, juggling friends and family, travelling and experiencing the world….
There’s been multiple times I have been overwhelmed, exhausted and frankly burnt out by the pursuit of my ambitions.
So if you have felt the same way, you’re not alone here.
In this piece, I’m going to share with you a sustainable approach that I’ve found works for the modern renaissance man: someone who has multiple interests but seemingly not enough time to pursue them all.
I’m also going to further define what I deem a modern Renaissance man to be and compare and contrast that to Renaissance men of times gone by.
TIMES HAVE CHANGED & MEN MUST ADAPT…
It’s no secret that 2026 is far different to the classical Renaissance times.
Therefore, the Stoics, the philosophers of times gone by, don’t have as much potency when it comes to navigating the terrains of modern times.
Things such as learning Latin, painting murals, or any of these other more traditionalist Renaissance skill sets are far less valuable in the current climate.
This is not to say that being well-rounded and pursuing artistic passions is not a value. If you genuinely want to learn a new language or pick up some sort of artistic expression, by all means, you should fully pursue these interests that you have.
But what I primarily want to focus on for this piece is taking the Renaissance approach of being diverse and multi-skilled, but focusing more so on skill sets, interests, and areas that increase the probability of a modern man’s success & fulfillment in their life.
There are three categories that I believe to be incredibly valuable as a modern man who wants to be well-rounded.
We can categorise this man into:
THE ATHLETE
It’s no secret that I’ve been pushing against the bodybuilding movement for quite some time now.
I have no beef with the bodybuilding industry. I, in fact, have my own father and uncle that competed at a very high level in Australia at this very sport. I know that it’s demanding. I know that it takes a lot of grit, hard work, and it can be very, very difficult at the highest levels.
However, in 2026, the world has shifted into such a bizarre cosmetic culture, even for men, to where they’re getting facial reconstructive surgeries and being absolutely obsessed with looksmaxxing to an unhealthy degree.
My stance is it’s a much healthier approach to view the physical vessel and the training of that physical vessel as someone who is an athlete.
This is not the complete dismissal of aesthetics and appearance. However, greater emphasis for the modern renaissance man should be on using physical training as a means of capability.
Once you learn the basic patterns of lifting weights, there’s diminishing returns on spending further time obsessing over whether you need to supinate at 20° or 25° for a bicep curl.
I’ve always preached the acquisition of skills that are also physical in nature. For example:
learning how to swim
learning how to hike and mountaineer
learning how to sprint, run, throw, and carry
All of these different skill sets will still yield an impressive physique. However, the physique itself is not the main focus. It’s having a real-world capability.
I don’t know about you, but I never want to have to say no because of some physical limitation that I haven’t trained for, no matter how old I am.
I see guys throw the towel in at 30 years of age. They stop playing sports, they stop doing anything remotely athletic, and they wonder why their bodies feel fragile and why they simply can’t do what they did when they were younger.
My substack is absolutely littered with physical training advice, so I won’t get into that for this proponent of the article. However, viewing yourself as an athlete instead of a casual gym goer who wants a bit of muscle also just gives you a lot more longevity in the fitness and physical space.
There’s always a new physical skill to learn, whether that’s diving, shooting, spear fishing, riding a motorcycle, or mountain biking. Learning and trialing a bunch of these different physical skillsets is going to give you far more consistency and longevity in the enjoyment of physical fitness.
I can’t count the amount of times where I got absolutely sick of physical training because all I did was monotonous, boring bodybuilding splits. We all know the number one indicator of health long term is finding something that you genuinely enjoy. There may be some of you out there that love bodybuilding, and that’s okay, but for those of you that aren’t in that boat, there are much more enjoyable things that you can do.
THE ARTIST
The artist’s portion of the modern renaissance man is often the most overlooked.
Most men will intuitively go to the gym and work on their career or business. However, the artist portion of this archetype is just as valuable.
Whether you like it or not, humans are moved by storytelling, photography, aesthetics, and brand. All of these create such asymmetric influence on the world. This is why “influencers” and celebrities are so wealthy because of their ability to transfer ideas into the minds of their audience and create demand.
You see that now, where everybody wants a “personal brand”.
The reality is, every single one of you reading this article is reading it because of the way I have put an aesthetic spin on the topics that I discuss. They give you a certain feeling: the way that I write, the imagery that I use, the design elements that I use. That’s been able to be conveyed across multiple social media platforms.
Having an eye for aesthetics is something that some of the biggest business moguls of times gone by have also really appreciated. Gianni Agnelli, previous owner of Fiat and, is a pinnacle example of this.
Creativity and artistic expression are also something that is not too far removed from business. If we look at the main mechanisms of business, it’s fundamentally creative problem-solving. If you can create solutions that are superior to the market’s solutions, you then have a very prosperous business if it’s marketed, sold, and fulfilled successfully.
So don’t sleep on your artistic expression, whether that be through the music that you listen to, whether that be designing a brand of your own. Each of these different elements tends to be one of the more occluded skill sets that are lacking in the modern man, who is just purely focused on gym plus business.
THE BUSINESSMAN
Unfortunately, in the age of social media, the term entrepreneur has been given a bad connotation.
For this reason, I prefer to use the term “businessman.”
We are all heavily aware of the fact that money plays a huge role in the quality of life, not only for our own lives but for our families as well.
The hardest balance that I’ve found, not only within my own life but in clients I consult with, is having financial success but minimizing the downsides of being an absent boyfriend, husband, son, grandson.
The more obsessed you are with the acquisition of finances, the less available you become in other domains of your life.
I’ve also seen significant diminishing returns in living a life purely for the acquisition of capital.
So for this reason, the modern renaissance man’s focus when it comes to business is having it serve him and not being a slave to the dollar.
I say this as someone who has spoken with so many successful men in business who hate their station in life, who are just as miserable as they would have been had they stayed at their job that they hated.
For that reason, in the context of this article, the businessman is someone who uses money as a vehicle to get what he wants out of life.
Now, everybody reading this is going to have a different by the way and driving force for why they either work a particular job or run a particular business.
A common tenant that I see within the business world, or why many people start, is for autonomy over their scheduling. Now, this may seem like a small thing to comment upon. However, a majority of people that I speak with were simply fed up with having to ask for permission to go away on holiday, to only have a certain amount of weeks a year where they had that “freedom.”
Even if the business they currently run is more stressful, has higher pressure, and they technically don’t know where their next dollar is coming from, they would rather go through all of these trials and tribulations and adversity in order to maintain their sovereignty.
In my view, a modern Renaissance man has as much voluntary control over his schedule as possible. He has the ability to leverage different currencies, different geographical locations, and not necessarily have to play the rat race if he so chooses.
An example of this in my life is the current transition that I’m looking to make. The city has served me well for the years that I’ve spent in that domain; however, the city has also changed drastically, and it may be the same case for some of you reading this piece.
I’m far more attracted to coastal living. It suits my training schedule. It allows me to swim in the open ocean. It’s a healthier lifestyle for me and my future family. With that, it’s also a more economically viable decision for me and my family as well.
because I have full control and autonomy over the way that I earn money, I don’t need to be restricted to the city in order to maximize my upside of salaried potential. The caveat to this is that it depends on what industry you’re working in. If you’re in things such as private equity or high-end law, these rules don’t necessarily apply to you.
For someone like me who was in the health space as a physiotherapy practitioner, the income was incredibly capped, first and foremost. Secondly, the amount of work that was necessary in order to earn that salary was disproportionate.
I’m not saying that everybody should be running an online business or a business at all, for that matter. However, being able to have global reach, being able to have full locational autonomy, these are things that have significant leverage and are very much a modern skillset to develop.
The prerequisite skill sets as a businessman in the modern Renaissance era are going to be the ability to market and sell, to distribute ideas and curate influence based on these ideas. We live in a time where you can be mentored or learn from some of the best practitioners on the entire planet, even if they don’t live remotely close to where you are.
Compare that to the Renaissance period, where a lot of these men would have to travel far and wide in order to acquire these new skills. We’re in a period of time where skill acquisition itself can be far more streamlined and made much more efficient. This, if anything, gives us a far greater opportunity to develop a very wide array of skills and be even more diverse than someone that was born in that era.
ARCHETYPE APPLICATION
STEP 1: THE 4 DOMAINS OF THE MODERN RENAISSANCE MAN
So now that I’ve discussed these three different elements of a modern Renaissance man, how does one apply that practically within their lives?
The most successful strategy that I’ve found that works in practice, particularly for those of you that have multiple interests, multiple skills that you want to develop, and multiple different areas that you wish to excel at, is periodizing.
the same way an elite athlete would structure their training, lifestyle, recovery, etc., in their daily life, we want to use this same skill set and apply it to four different domains:
Physical
Monetary
Social
Experiential
I’ve methodically chosen these four different areas because, once again, I often see guys doing a really good job at one or two of these different areas, but without the others, they become a far less well-rounded individual.
For example, many businessmen neglect the importance of social interaction. They often will comment on their lives being isolated and lonely. I think this is just a design of placing yourself within an ivory tower.
Additionally, many men wait until they’ve “made it” before they then pursue interesting hobbies, go on expeditions and adventures, and do the very thing that will prevent them from burning out in the first place from a business perspective.
STEP 2: PERIODIZING YOUR AMBITIONS
I previously spoke about the elite athlete’s approach to periodization. Now, in my experience, people do one of two things:
They either set a goal that is far too lofty and far too large and far too future-driven (for example, 10-year goals, 20-year goals, etc.). These can be important to give you some context; however, if they’re too far away, the feedback loop is too distant.
They’re too short-sighted, and they don’t give you enough room to really make significant progress.
The sweet spot that I’ve found for not only myself but for clients alike is a 12-week peak cycle. The reason I’ve chosen this is that we see this in multiple different areas, not only within business but also in nature. We’re all privy to the fact that business quarters approximate 12 weeks.
Much like this 12-week cycle in business, we see this 12-week cycle seasonally when it comes to summer, autumn, winter, and spring.
For that reason, it makes logical sense to use these cycles and leverage them due to the duration being long enough to get significant progress made but also short enough to have laser focus across that time period.
The magic of this is then having a focus in each of the four domains that I mentioned above in this 12-week cycle, so that you’re actually making meaningful progress and actualizing your potential.
EXAMPLE IN PRACTISE:
To keep this article relatively brief, I’m going to explain this using a clear example. As I mentioned before, I have interests in martial arts, golf, tennis, swimming, sprinting, Olympic weightlifting, and athletic development in the gym.
If I try to train all of these qualities simultaneously, I’d simply just be average at all of them and not have meaningful enough skill acquisition sessions to make an impact.
So what I’ve done is I’ve compiled these physical activities that I wish to learn into specific seasons.
For example, winter time is miserable for both tennis and golf unless you’re playing indoors. As a result, I tend to opt for more indoor-based activities, such as martial arts and pool swimming, in the winter time, as well as focus on an anabolic adaptation cycle from a training perspective.
This also governs how I focus on nutrition. I think one of the worst ideas is to do an aggressive cut in winter simply because the weather’s cold. The last thing your body is going to want to do is peel off fat. Why not leverage the fact that winter is a time for growth and set up your nutrition and calories accordingly.
You’ll notice a theme here with how intentional I am about structuring the way I pursue skills, business, and the other domains of my life.
I believe the biggest difference between someone who’s ambitious that makes it and who doesn’t is how intentional they are with their time, with their execution of their plan, and how much focus they have throughout the year.
This 12-week periodized approach allows me to not try to cram so many different skills in simultaneously and inevitably be frustrated with the fact that not only do I not have the time for all of these different things, but I also am not improving the way that I would like (because I’m simply trying to spread myself too thin).
I hope this piece gave you some unique insights into how to modernize all of the best qualities of the Renaissance period, but also gave you practical and actionable steps in order to become the man you want to be.
I’ve gone into significantly more detail around this concept in my Peak Potential Protocol, which you can access by clicking this link.
J.Krucial