What Happened To Victor Pride of Bold and Determined?

So after so many months without visiting his blog, I tried to visit boldanddetermined.com for some fired up articles only to get a surprise.. that the blog has been permanently closed and then there's podcast following from Vic Pride (now Brother Nicholas) claiming that He's now Born again and has given his life to Jesus Christ.

I didn't know how to feel. Whether it's good news or bad news will ultimately be up to us, but I just think I should share my thoughts about it here. But before that a brief background story.

Victor Pride has been running the motivational blog bold and determined since 2011 and he has actually inspired and motivated a lot of young men and women to break out lazy attitudes/habits to live the life of their dreams. 

Even though, I never really agreed with quite a number of his ideas about God, religion, the government, women etc, I still saw the truth in some of the things he said. And he had a very unique way of writing with gives you that adrenaline rush to get up and get kicking. I bet you, his writing style is worthy of emotion and it's sad all the articles are all gone. Some of his views were quite dangerous, but that didn't take away that unique ability he had to write kick ass content.

I believe he was a successful blogger given the following he had and the sales he made from selling his ebooks. He wrote mostly about Mindset, body building and entrepreneurship. And even though his blog contained some truths, I think something was missing which is what he later found out and probably led him to closing down the blog.

It got me thinking; as motivated as Vic Pride is and with how much he must have made from writing, why would he give it all up and quit? The answer suddenly dawned on me: Motivation, Mindset and Will power are not everything!

I thought hard about it and figured that he was probably too motivated that he excluded other components in his life which could have led him to find more meaning and happiness. He got to the top only to find out that it was lonely there. Money, good health and women aren't really all there is to existence and I think that dawned on Victor Pride before he gave his life to Christ.

Motivation is great. Without motivation, we cannot do anything. We will feel empty lifeless and weak.. so definitely motivation has a role to play to enable us succeed in life because it is through actions that we get things done. However, motivation may get you to be successful, but it's not enough to make you happy and fulfilled.

There are two components to being happy and fulfilled and they are: spirituality (a strong relationship with God) and quality of your relationships (how you genuinely connect to people and community). These two combined with motivation I believe will lead a much more fulfilling life beyond wealth and material success.

Those two components in your life will fill a void that no amount of money or success can fill. The void is always there to remind us that as humans, we are part of something far greater than our individual selves and if we do not connect back to that source, we will miss the mark and go astray irrespective of what we achieve.

I think that was what happened to Vic Pride. In his podcast, Vic admitted that he hated people! Which is proof that the second component was missing. He avoided people and felt that by enriching himself, getting as much money as he could and by being independent, he would totally be independent of people. But we are social creatures and no matter how annoying we think other human beings are, we are still connected to them in a way or the other.

It's not possible to be totally independent. It's not even real. No matter how successful you get, you can't take away people and connections. If you try to do that, you will lose yourself. People matter and our connection to them matters as well. We must be genuinely interested in working with people and helping to make our communities better the little way we can. That's how we find meaning.

There's joy found when you stop thinking about yourself and your ambitions for a while and look at your neighbor and try to see how you can make their lives better. There's joy when you reach out to less privileged people and see how you can help out. These little things give you meaning.

And then his opinions about God. He wasn't really clear about that. Many of his articles seemed to make it look like you are your own god. He was so focused on willpower that he failed to see that even though God allows us freewill, we are ultimately here to fulfill his will with that freewill. 

Relationship with God matters a lot. And it gives clarity to one's life. Life is too mysterious that you can't just say you came here all by yourself and the world somehow created itself with animals just forming themselves and stuff. It's too hard to believe that all these things started happening randomly without original design. Which is why it's paramount that one builds strong relationship with the creator.

I don't want to go into talks about various religions and stuff. But all I have to say is; as long as you strongly believe that God exists and you genuinely want to do good in this world, you will definitely find your way to do God's will. If your heart is true, you will experience an encounter that will make you commit to building a strong relationship with him, just like Vic Pride (now Nicholas) is doing. 

Religion in general helps us deepen our faith in God and even build better relationships with people around us. But without the motivation component, even the most religious people and believers still fail. Motivation is what fires up that freewill to do God's will and engage meaningfully with people around you.

So, those are my thoughts about it. I honestly pray brother Nicholas finds meaning and lasting happiness through his new found faith. The thing to learn here is: motivation alone is not enough, being successful is not enough. Finding meaning through serving God by doing what is right and genuinely caring about other people is what ultimately fills the void we all have.

Don't wait to get to the top to experience the "emptiness" and then start regretting it. As you're working hard, as you're fired up to excel and as you are reaching towards those awesome goals you have, never forget the place of your Creator and never forget to build strong relationships with people around you.

That way, when you get to the top, you wouldn't feel so empty. 😁 By the way, I have a confession to make; One of Vic Pride's article inspired me to start this blog, one good thing from bold and determined. I owe this article to him and I hope as he finds meaning, he can now be inspired to write much more balanced views about life, people and spirituality.

Till next time,

Connect the three components and keep winning!

Nigel.