What Is Be Great?

The word goodbye is too strained for your average 20-something male to use. You sound like a robot or a grandmother. Goodbye! Just reading it out loud can make you uneasy, you can’t get caught saying that these days. Though the full phrase of which goodbye is a contraction (God be with ye) is hard as hell, no one knows that, and if you wanted to wish God’s presence to someone, it would be much cooler just to say that outright. 

Most kids recklessly experiment in their college years. I was one of them. One such experimentation was switching up my salutations. (Exciting, I know.) The proper, authentic salutation for wishing someone well was not clear to me. “See ya,” was too casual and careless. “Peace” was too passive and pacifist. “I’m out” was too selfish, and after many failed attempts to be the “be safe” guy, I settled upon two that felt both unique and replicable.

“That’s love,” is how I would notify my boys of my departure, and - when that became too long - the phrase was abbreviated to simply: “love.” It’s beautiful in its simplicity. Dapping up your boy, transitioning through the dap-hug, slapping him on the back, and telling him “love” as a full sentence, is the purest form of male-to-male friendship and understanding. You’d never say “I love you” to one of your bros, it would be disrespectful - he already knows you do. But a simple “love” reminds my boy that he’s my boy, in the deepest, realest sense.

However, sometimes, I didn’t love everyone. And I wanted to wish the best to dudes I just kind of liked, but didn’t love. Also, I couldn’t name a newsletter Love by Chad Frick and not get destroyed in the hometown group chat. 

“Be great” became my standard salutation. To wish someone greatness is to wish they achieve their fullest potential and enact the highest good within the world. The best people inspire others to be better than they are. I want to be one. I want this newsletter to communicate that.

Each person’s purpose is to maximize good in the world in the face of evil. Developing one’s potential is a positive good for society and the universe. The better you are, the more good you can do. I want to be great, but that’s a vague and ambiguous goal if undefined.  

What does it mean to be great?

To be clear, this is my definition, based on who I want to become. Though I believe there is some objectivity to greatness, it can vary widely based on what you aim at, and what you seek to experience in life. To be even clearer, I am not an embodiment of greatness. It is a constant upward journey.

Put simply, being great means becoming and being who you are aiming to be - as long as your aim is upward. For help discovering what you should aim at, click here.

There are three high-level actions that I believe propel an individual to greatness. To be great, you must:

Soar

Use of the word soar is borrowed from the chorus of John Mayer’s Bigger Than My Body:

Someday I’ll fly,

someday, I’ll soar. 

Someday I’ll be 

so damn much more. 

Cuz I’m bigger than my body 

gives me credit for.

To soar in this context is to become more than you are, and transcend the earthly limitations of your body. Flying and soaring mean lifting yourself above mortality, and dancing into the realm of immortality. To soar is to have impact and influence on lives other than your own, and ideally on lives that have not yet been born.

Greatness requires that you excel in a particular field, and are recognized by others for your contributions to that field. Think of Walter Payton: “When you're good at something, you'll tell everyone. When you're great at something, they'll tell you.” There is fulfillment in becoming synonymous with your field. Even if you don’t like them, you cannot tell the history of boxing without Muhammad Ali, of football without Tom Brady, of hip-hop without Kanye West, of America without our most inflammatory politicians. Muhammad Ali is dead, Tom Brady has retired, and depending on who you ask, Kanye will never be the same, but they have created legacies for themselves that will last longer than their lives. 

There are smaller ways to do this. The stepping stone to soaring is contributing. If you’ve ever seen a dad put his hands on his hips and take a step back to admire his work, it is because he has contributed. He may die tomorrow, but the paint he just put on the fence will remain, and the lawn he just labored over will be well-groomed, and the table will not wobble because he created a makeshift leg to hold it in place. 

Create and build something that lasts even after you’re gone. An ancient Greek proverb states: A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. 

I think young men should plant trees as well. To contribute would be to plant a tree. To soar would be to plant as many forests as possible.

Fight

To fight is to stand for something. To stand up against something. To contend, to vie for victory. To fight is to accept the challenge, to step into the ring. Each of us is President Roosevelt’s Man In The Arena:

whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

The history of man is the conflict between good and evil. You must fight to preserve all that is good, and to keep the scale tilted toward the good. In the story of life, we are engaged in four conflicts:

Man vs. Man

Man vs. Society

Man vs. Nature 

Man vs. Self

You and I are man, either battling against our fellow man, the ties that bind, the limitations of earthly existence, or our own self-destructive tendencies. Benjamin Franklin cheerily instructed: “Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.”

It is important to note that he did not say that one should defeat his vices, the fight is inevitable, impossible to fully win. But he did not suggest to be defeated by them either, and suggested you grow as a person as time goes on. Winning is staying in the fight.

To refuse to fight is sinful, wasteful, ungrateful and selfish. Those who give up are more common than you may realize. Perhaps you are fortunate enough to not know them, or have not recognized their lives as an embodiment of the refusal to fight. Sad, desolate, useless, hopeless men exist in shadows - sliding slowly into Thoreau’s “quiet desperation.” A man who has quietly accepted himself in his limited form, despite knowing full well that improvement is in his control, is not a fighter. He tips the lifescale toward evil by refusing to do good - by choosing a life of vague indolence and insignificance. He refuses to fight and feels that he has already been defeated, so he hibernates and grows bitter at the world. Yes, he is still alive, but for what purpose? He who has convinced himself that man, that society, that nature, that self has won out and defeated him - that the fight is not worth continuing - is he who I seek to avoid ever becoming. Often, he is who I’m up against. 

Imagine in the cosmos, there is a giant scale that weighs all the aggregate good against all the aggregate evil. To recognize that life is worth living and that you have good to add to the world - to accept the responsibility of tipping the scale in good’s favor in the world’s greatest battle - is to fight. Recognition of death should be a motivator. I know that it is coming and I know that it will win, and I will nonetheless wrestle against it until the bell has rung.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

One must pick a noble battle and aim to win. Aiming upward, in and of itself, is a heroic and noble pursuit. To prevent anything or anyone from imposing their harmful will upon you or others is to be a good and great man. 

A high-integrity political candidate is engaged in a noble battle. A struggling businessman at war with larger, less honest competitors is in a noble battle. Raising children to be upright and just is a noble battle. David accepting the challenge, despite all Goliath’s advantages, was a noble battle. Fighting your addiction, your unproductive tendencies, your inadequacies is a noble battle.

To quote Saint Augustine: “Every choice is a renunciation.” When choosing to fight for something, you are necessarily fighting against something. Choosing to go for a run is renouncing indolence, indifference, and stagnation. Choosing to eat healthy is renouncing decay and deterioration. Choosing to care about others is renouncing selfishness and carelessness. Choosing to be kind and friendly is renouncing skepticism and hostility. Choosing to be good is renouncing evil.

I had a dream senior year of college. I was looking down a long, dark hallway ending in a closed, heavy wooden door. The hallway was lined with Indiana Jones-style boobytraps and obstacles - alligators, quick sand, poison darts, walls closing in. Something that I wanted was behind that door - treasure I guess - something that I knew would fulfill me and take me to a higher place. There were voices behind me who told me that the door was locked, and that I should not try to reach it, that doing so was dangerous and treacherous and worthless. I woke up before my dream-self made a decision, but I did not care what they said. I wanted to find out for myself if it was locked.

To fight would be to put your hand on the handle of that door. Even if it is locked. 

Lead

To lead is to have character. It is the meta-value, because you must soar and fight to be a leader.

A great man is a shining city on a hill that others aspire to be. Being a role model and example is not only a privilege, but a tremendous responsibility. You must be who you say you are, and operate with a set of commendable, desirable qualities, to inspire others to do the same:

Courage

Honesty

Integrity

Respect

Responsibility

Compassion

Humility

Among many others, those are traits that, once adopted, will positively transform your life and those you interact with. Being who you say you are, holding yourself to a high standard, and having integrity will ensure you win in the long-run. If a tree looks tall and mighty, but behind the bark it is rotting, decaying, and hollow, it will not last much longer. But if the tree is solid from its roots through its trunk to its branches, its leaves will cast glorious shade and grow beautiful flowers for decades.

Though Ellsworth Toohey of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead ends up as the villain, he is described as the ideal man, (if only it were authentically him). Dominique Francon, the dazzling socialite daughter of a billionaire, hates the world and does not want to belong to it. She would have left long ago had it not been for Ellsworth: “He’s so complete. [...] Everyone else is so unfinished, broken up into so many different pieces that they don’t fit together. But not Toohey. [...] Sometimes, when I feel bitter against the world, I find consolation in thinking that it’s all right - because there’s Ellsworth Toohey. [...] What he’s done - it makes you believe in all human beings.”

Everything is going to be alright, because [Your Name Here] exists. How great would you be if others believed that? How will you make others believe that? You should inspire hope in others, so that they too can soar and fight and lead, and pass it along down the line when it is their turn.

I watch It’s A Wonderful Life every year on Christmas Day. It is the story of a man with grand and noble dreams, but the sacrifices he makes for his family and community prevent him from achieving them. George Bailey, the only honest lender in his 1945 snowy small American town, wants to travel the world, but if he does, his corrupt competitor Henry F. Potter will have a monopoly on all property in Bedford Falls, and he’ll reduce all its citizens to a helpless working poor.

This self-imposed responsibility of promoting the welfare of his small community weighs George down, and the accumulation of these frustrations causes George to cry out to his father: “I want to do something big, and something important!” 

Without looking up from the dinner table, George’s father replies: “Ya know George, I feel – that in a small way – we are doing something important.”

George operates with integrity, takes responsibility for his community, has the courage to stand up to the bullies, and cares about his family and neighbors. He inspires all who have come into contact with him to reach high above themselves for the person that they can be, and to do so justly and honestly. In leading by example - sacrificing for the good of others - George is ultimately rewarded. The movie ends with every single citizen of the town following his sacrificial example: donating their money to bail him out of a debt he owes. His war hero brother surprises him by returning home early, and proposes a toast, as his friends throw money at him in his home: “To my brother, George Bailey! The richest man in town!” 

Rich in character, compassion, and companions, George leads a fulfilling life by being good at what he does, engaging in a fight, and leading by example. 

St. Francis of Assisi stated: Always preach the Gospel, and - when necessary - use words. The word Gospel translates in Hellenistic Greek to “good news.” Whatever your Gospel, your good news is, express it through your actions. Be who you wish everyone was, and lead by example. 

Why Be Great?

I started writing this because I grew frustrated with the false definition of greatness that was being propagated online. 

Formerly weak, still insecure older men are telling anguished and impressionable young men that being great means getting whatever you want. That is not what greatness is. There are a number of mega-roid juiced-up online influencers who pervert man’s innate desire for greatness into a sinister narcissism, and cultivate within each man an us vs. them mentality against the world. Be it to develop a cult of personality, or to profit off those desperately longing for more, this has proven to be the standard for encouraging more from young men, and is successful in attracting low-status young men who are hoping to grow.

Self-improvement has become a lucrative industry, as well as a very culty religion. This is not a self-improvement blog, this is my own personal development, on display for reflection. Once again, I am 22-years-old, and don’t know anything more about life than your average 22-year-old. I am not claiming to have the answers, I am instead hoping to ask the right questions. Here is what I do know:

Having more sex and doing more curls does not and will not make you great. Getting exactly what you want all the time does not and will not make you great. Driving a Bugatti does not and will not make you great. Soaring, fighting, and leading in the fight against evil will.

Great man theory is a historical and leadership theory developed by Thomas Carlyle in 1840 that claims “the history of the world is but the biography of great men.” The course of history is attributed to the choices and impact of men who had abilities to enact large-scale influence. Though controversial for its neglect of trends, cultures, and the common people, I happen to believe it. Think of where the world would be if great men never rose to the positions that they did. 

If rather than FDR and Churchill, the world had weak, feeble men as President and Prime Minister, none of us would be the way we are today. If Abraham Lincoln had accepted all his previous failures as an indication to quit, I would not have been able to attend college in South Carolina, or live in Florida having been born in Maryland. How many children would have grown up illiterate had Dr. Suess accepted all publishers’ rejections? How much less imagination would the world have if Walt Disney had believed what was told to him? 

This publication won’t simply be reminders that you should do your push-ups and contribute to society. It will not only be advice either. It will likely discuss history, finance, career, relationships, values, and other introspective and philosophical thoughts that happen to occur to me. All will be rooted in helping young men do more and achieve more, to eventually propel them into positions that will positively shape the world’s future. The better you are, the better the world is.

Who is Be Great?

Right now, Be Great is just Chad Frick, a 22-year-old living in Tampa, FL as of April 2024 when I’m writing this. Obviously, I aim to be more than that as time goes on. I also aim for Be Great to be more than that. Reading and writing have always been hobbies of mine, and the idea finally dawned upon me that I could share these writings, and they may be beneficial to others the way they have been to me. 

Rather than a hobby, writing seems to be an impulsion that I cannot control, an addiction that I cannot suppress. The thoughts inside, good and bad, simple and profound, meaningful and meaningless, worth and not worth sharing, desperately beg to be released and transformed into written word, most often on paper. President Harry Truman had the same compulsion, which he referred to as “longhand spasms,” of which he claimed he had a “psychological need” to express, to free thoughts from his mind onto paper and into reality. That is likely the best way to describe it - a psychological need. 

I grew up in Gaithersburg, Maryland, moved to South Carolina to go to college at Clemson University with my best friend, and drove to Tampa, Florida with all my worldly possessions in my family’s sedan two days after graduation.

When I was five-years-old I was learning to skip rocks unsuccessfully. I got mad and desperately threw a stick up the creek, and it skipped twice. In first grade at Bingo Night I broke two fingers in the girls’ bathroom door. I climbed a tree to poach an egg from its nest and smashed it in my hand when I fell from the tree. I’ve never forgiven myself. 

The first run I ever scored in high school baseball, I stole home, somersaulted the catcher and tagged the plate with my helmet. My car broke down the day I got my license. I didn’t mind, my redneck teammate let me hold his AK-47 to cheer me up. The only show that I have ever watched all the way through is The Sopranos.

I claim, without any evidence to disprove it, that I am the first person to hit Blueface’s BussDown Thotiana dance on an active volcano. I am the oldest of four brothers. I would die for my brothers. I bought a car my senior year of high school for $200 from an obese methhead couple off Craigslist. It couldn’t go over 40 MPH and my boys and I painted it our high school’s colors. 

In college a girl punched me in the face because I didn’t want her to go in my room. It took four months for my sense of smell to come back after getting COVID. I had my first beer on my 21st birthday. I got hammered at the Orange Bowl in 2022 and ran laps around the stadium. I failed the 75 Hard Challenge on Day 58 when a Navy SEAL handed me an old-fashioned in his home. I had cervical kyphosis for a year and half. I won Most Likely To Brighten Your Day in high school and girls on dating apps don’t care as much as I thought they would. My uncle and my father hold the world record for the Longest Distance Traveled On A Stand-Up Jet Ski. I plan to beat that record.

I played my first live gig with 30 minutes of preparation and no equipment but a guitar. The three hottest girls in the crowd were in the front row, and they didn’t leave.  

One of my best friends had never read a whole book until I encouraged him in 2021. Now in 2024, he’s a published children’s author.

I want to encourage others that reading and writing are fulfilling, even masculine methods of self-improvement. Making reading cool is something our elementary school teachers tried and failed to do - I hope to succeed. I believe that writing is a noble pursuit and I pray that my belief is true.

Thank you for reading this and for wanting more for and from yourself. As I have always written for my own viewership, assuming that no one else would ever read it, these essays, articles, posts - whatever you call them - may be vague and confusing at first. As I develop, so will these writings.

I want to grow and get smarter. I want to be great.