The 50% Rule: Why You Need Something Hard Enough to Break You
At 17, I carried a 25kg pack across a rugged military training area in North Yorkshire, fighting sleep while staring into darkness through weapon sights. We dug shallow, body-sized holes in the frozen ground and slept in them. Of 110 soldiers who started my infantry training, only 30 finished.
I didn't know it then, but this was my first Misogi.
Today I spend most of my time behind a desk, writing proposals for government tenders and crafting case studies for customers. I meet clients in air-conditioned high-rise offices in London. Lunch is usually served on platters: sandwiches, exotic fruits, coffee on demand. My life has become so comfortable that I intentionally introduce moments of discomfort daily.
I swim in the sea most mornings. In summer, this is pleasant. Through winter, I feel my body fighting to get me out of the cold and back to comfort. I run long distances for no reason other than to see if I can. I lift perfectly balanced weights in an air-conditioned gym for an arbitrary number of repetitions.
Even with this exercise, everything in my life and for those around me has become so comfortable. I worry this comfort is slowly killing us.
Discovering Misogi
Michael Easter, author of The Comfort Crisis and the 2% Newsletter, first introduced me to the concept of Misogi.
Misogi is a practice rooted in Shinto purification rituals, originally standing beneath freezing waterfalls or walking through bitter cold rivers to cleanse the spirit. When I first heard about this, I thought, "This sounds a lot like my daily dips in the English Channel."
In The Comfort Crisis, Easter describes discovering Misogi through a wilderness expedition into the Arctic to hunt caribou. He cites scientific journals and experts in physiology, psychology, and human evolution to describe something I've long known to be true:
Doing hard things has a positive knock-on effect on other areas of your life.
I've experienced this through my daily sea dips. By doing something uncomfortable daily, anything else that pops up during my day that's uncomfortable doesn't seem as bad as freezing in the sea with fingers and toes so cold you lose all feeling.
I experienced the same effects through military training. I spent countless days in challenging environments, mostly in Wales' Brecon Beacons, but also in the heat of Cyprus, Kenya, and Afghanistan. Those days spent sleep-deprived, carrying half my body weight on my back, moving over rough, unforgiving terrain make writing and editing a long bid proposal seem pretty easy in comparison.
Easter reframes Misogi as a modern challenge that is:
So hard there's a 50% chance you might fail, and so personal you don't share it with anyone, especially not online.
It has to force you so far out of your comfort zone that you're changed on the other side, not just physically, but mentally and spiritually.
Too often, our social media feeds are full of people posting about running another marathon (I'm guilty of this one) or sharing gym sessions on Instagram. Or taking part in social media-friendly Hyrox/CrossFit events or 10k obstacle course races. Those have metrics, comparisons, social validation. A true Misogi strips all that away and leaves you face-to-face with your essential self.
My Journey Through Difficulty
After that first military Misogi, I sought out more. At 26, I walked the length of England in the 10 days leading up to Christmas, sleeping in hedgerows and old barns. At 30, I set off to cycle around the world. One of the most challenging parts was spending 10 days alone, cycling 500 miles from the Arctic Sea in Alaska to Fairbanks.
During those Arctic days, I had no phone signal. I rarely saw humans, just the occasional truck heading to oil fields. I woke up surrounded by massive muskox that could crush me in a moment. A curious fox joined me for dinner. I sourced water from rivers and watched the purple and orange hues of the midnight sun as I cycled long into the daytime night.
A still taken from my video Crossing the Arctic Circle by Bike
These experiences raised the bar of what I thought possible, both physically and mentally. They created a clarity and sense of purpose that comfortable living simply cannot provide. They were transformational in ways that no gym routine or weekend adventure race could match.
But was this a true Misogi by Easter's definition? I filmed my Arctic bike trip, putting the video on YouTube for the world to see. I may not have had phone reception, but months later I posted videos seeking some form of social validation for what I had done.
In this case, I haven't really done a Misogi since my military days, where phones weren't allowed and we did physically grueling work as part of the job.
The Comfort Crisis We're Living
We've never lived in a more peaceful, comfortable time in history. This is one of the reasons 64.5% of adults in the UK are overweight, with 26.5% classified as obese.
As Easter puts it: "Comfort is the enemy of growth. We live in the safest, easiest era in history and we're breaking under the weight of our own ease."
In the UK and the West, we generally have no seminal rites of passage. No moments that forge us into who we're meant to become. Maybe the military is an exception. Joining the Army gave me the opportunity to discover aspects of my own strengths, physically and mentally, from a young age. However, only 3.8% of UK adults have ever served in the military, and many will never have been truly tested. The rest of us drift through life wondering why we feel numb, dull, disconnected.
Misogi offers a counterweight to the comfort life has become.
Even during my military service, the frequency of challenging events declined as I became more senior. I got pushed behind a desk and watched soldiers complete physically demanding challenges in training and operations. After leaving the military, I unknowingly felt the desire and pull for my own "epic," as I used to call it. This was my next Misogi, before I'd even discovered the concept.
Your Missing Rite of Passage
What would it look like for you to attempt something with a real chance of failure? Not for glory, for others, or for social media. But just for you.
I'm looking for men who feel this calling. Men who are tired of the endless comfort cycle, who crave something real and transformative. Over the next 6 months, I want to help you design and complete your personal Misogi. This is something I have yet to see elsewhere. This won't be a copy-and-paste program but a highly tailored programme that will build over the months, culminating in a life changing event.
Each Misogi will be:
Highly personal to your starting position, abilities, and location
Physical and demanding with genuine risk of failure (50% chance)
Transformational in ways that create lasting change
Wild and disconnected from the digital world that numbs us
These aren't obstacle races or CrossFit competitions. They're expeditions into yourself. Experiences that will create memories lasting longer than any medal or personal record.
You'll carry what you need to survive. You'll push to your limits in wild places where quitting isn't an option. You'll discover what you're truly capable of when everything comfortable is stripped away.
Ready to Find Out Who You Really Are?
If you're a man who feels disconnected from your own strength, who's tired of living in the gray zone of endless comfort, who craves something that will forge you into who you're meant to become, I want to work with you.
This isn't about proving anything to anyone else. It's about that moment when you're face-to-face with your limits and you have to decide who you really are.
What would it look like for you to attempt something with a real chance of failure?
Get in touch. Let's talk.
