The WarriorSTRONG Manifesto is a self-development guide that urges readers to conserve their life energy, break destructive patterns, reject drama, and reclaim personal power through discipline, awareness, and self-mastery. What first inspired you to define “warriorhood” around harmlessness, discipline, and energy conservation rather than conflict or aggression?

My first exposure to the concept of warriorhood as a path to power rather than as a path of aggression came to me over 45 years ago through Carlos Castaneda, an influential and controversial American author who’s no longer on the planet.  Starting in 1968, Castaneda wrote a series of ten books featuring his conversations with don Juan, a Yaqui Shaman man of knowledge from Arizona and Mexico.  Don Juan engaged Castaneda as his warrior apprentice. The teacher-to-apprentice narrative shared by Castaneda and don Juan is how information about warriorhood is haphazardly revealed to us.

Unfortunately for humanity, Castaneda had his own agenda, and he was slow to pick up on the revolutionary importance of don Juan’s teachings.  This is why don Juan’s messages are presented to us in an incomplete, dis-orderly, non-actionable way.  Even more, Castaneda’s storyline is sometimes fantastical and hard to believe. Because of this, some readers and authorities disregard don Juan’s voice and mistakenly categorize everything Castaneda wrote as fiction.  

This is where I come in.  My superpower is the ability see patterns, systems and strategies others miss.  I find hidden gems of information in the same way an archeologist finds hidden gems and relics in ruins.  Castaneda and don Juan left clues for us, and I found them. I studied them.  I organized them.  I wrote about them.  Eventually, over a 20-year period, I began to humbly see myself as the foremost living expert on don Juan’s path to warriorhood.  It’s how the WarriorSTRONG way was born in me.  Instead, however, of creating a derivative work, I circumvented the baggage that comes with Castaneda and created my own unique brand.

You describe wasted life energy in vivid, practical terms. How did you develop the idea of treating personal energy almost like accumulated money?

Many years ago, Iwas teaching a seminar about Castaneda’s work, and I recall fishing around for the right words, trying to explain don Juan’s strategy to others.  The example of wasting-saving-accumulating money and wasting-saving-accumulating life energy somehow organically popped out of my mouth.  It was the only example I could think of that everyone could relate to and understand.  I’ve been using it ever since.  

For someone just beginning the WarriorsDailyCode, what is the first small but meaningful practice you would recommend?

The smallest most potent, meaningful practice I recommend is taking the 7-day stopping challenge.  Pick one and only one small behavior and stop it for 7 consecutive days.   
-Stop saying the f-word in every sentence for 7 days. 
-Stop throwing clothes on the floor for 7 days. 
-Stop hitting the snooze button for 7 days. 
-Stop being late for 7 days. 
-Stop speeding for 7 days. 

The Warrior’s Daily Code is a helpful, convenient reminding tool for manifesting your stopping decision (making your decision real).  It’s the place to write out your decision and for reading it during the 7-day period; the place to pick a start and stop date; the place to identify the biggest, most probable mistake and for coming up with a simple game plan to prevent it.  Lastly, it’s the place to track daily performance and to quickly notice and correct mistakes.  

Stopping is an under-rated underutilized life skill, typically relegated to recovery.  It demonstrates personal power, mental toughness and the ability to walk your own talk. Stopping is essential because it overrides (transcends) the ego robot that lives in us all.  Machines can’t stop themselves, but humans can.  People can do hard things. Stopping and paying attention to what you’re doing isn’t as hard as most people think it is. A 7-day contained period is fast and easy enough for most people to successfully accomplish.   

One last thing about stopping not included in the book.  Don Juan teaches an advanced concept he calls “the assemblage point,” a spot outside the body and behind the shoulder blades where our life emanations (energetic filaments) collect and are held together.  Stopping is the only tool humans have for moving the assemblage point from one position to another.  Any movement of the assemblage point changes human perception and enhances human powers.  It’s how warriors, witches and shamans acquire the power to perform healings, miracles and non-ordinary feats.  

Author Links: karenbentley.com | Warriorstrongmanifesto.com | Facebook | Instagram | Goodreads