In 2011 a man named Nicholas Kelly launched a website named boldanddetermined.com. It was a revolutionary (and now legendary) body of work. In it under his pen name Victor Pride he showed millions of men the dream of how he quit his job and started a blog that made him a million dollars. It was amazing. I’ll never forget the first day I discovered the blog. I had just read Napoleon Hill’s great work Think and Grow Rich and had questions about sexual transmutation. Victor had an article on that subject and I was hooked. I kept reading page after page of him discussing topics like carrying around $10,000 cash on the streets of Vietnam, how to be a man, how to make money on the internet, women, and more. It was truly ahead of it’s time. Victor mentioned how he had been inspired by books such as the 4 hour workweek, The millionaire fastlane, and Arnold, the education of a bodybuilder. I started to read all of the books and such he mentioned and much of those works have greatly inspired me to where I am at today. I didn’t stumble across the blog until 2018 or so. By then he had been going at it for 7 years and had already done a rebrand or two. He had a few earlier versions of his works that he had scrubbed and deleted from the internet such as the Full Color Godcasts or even an earlier version Cave Manliness. So I suppose it was to no great surprise that in 2020 Victor deleted his blog. He had been going deeper into religion and spoke about how God had changed his life and that he was now going by his god given name Nicholas. He disavowed his previous works, books like New World Ronin, and Monk Mode (books you can still find and download to this day for free) It was a sad day for many, as it felt as though Victor had abandoned us all especially in such a disconcerting time that was Covid -19. I can’t help but laugh at what he would have said about it all. He was always very paranoid at the government and probably would have left America for good as he often did. But we will never know. According to some other podcasts and internet comments, Nick now works in a church in Texas and is doing well. Another rumor is that he also owed $500,000+ dollars in unpaid taxes to the US federal government so it is truly anyone’s guess what really happened in the end there if shutting down was his choice or not. Either way I highly suggest that you check out some of his works. They are still some of the best modern day writing for men that I have seen. But as a large tree falls in the forest and provides nutrients for the new trees, you and I can benefit from his works, and expand and improve upon them. To quote Bernard of Chartres, “We are like dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance.” It is time to lead our own lives. So to Victor, I thank you for all you did and I look forward to continuing your work So until next time, Your man, -Spencer Claeys |
