I've tried my hand at over 24 different businesses and careers by the time I turned 24, all before founding AboveMen.
Throughout all this, I also moved more than 10 times, which included flying nearly 4,000 km across Canada to Vancouver, BC... where I didn't know a single person.
It was hard to keep friends because I was moving around so much, both in my career and geographically.
But friends and family would question me constantly:
"Cam, how the f*ck can you just keep going from career to career, place to place so easily?"
I didn't know how to answer that... until now.
Recently, I figured it out:
Don’t you wonder:
How one man can effortlessly navigate life’s challenges while you feel stuck in quicksand?
Or another way to see it:
How we all have the same 24 hours in a day, yet a select few men seem to accomplish 10–100x more in that same amount of time—some have built entire empires, leading teams of thousands, serving millions, and making billions, all while staying fit and maintaining strong relationships.
The difference between you and men who make it look effortless to achieve everything and become anything is what I’m going to reveal in this memo.
Boldly, I’m going to be one of those select men, because I’ve learned the same truths and acquiring the same skills that the most successful men in the world have used to achieve everything they have today.
I’m just early on my journey.
And so are you… but you’ll never progress much further than where you are today without this information.
The truth is:
The difference between you and the men who make it look easy isn’t talent, connections, or intelligence.
It’s mastery of meta skills—fundamental capabilities that determine how effectively you observe, learn, and adapt.
Meta skills are the root-level software for high-performance men. They:
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I naturally had a larger set of these meta skills from a young age. That’s why I was able to do what I did: work through 24+ businesses and careers by 24… move across the country without knowing anyone… and do both with excitement. Honestly, it was all very easy for me.
This is the first realization you must make:
If you want to be, do, or have anything in your life…
Specifically, if you want to achieve EVERYTHING you’re capable of achieving (and it’s a lot),
then you MUST learn, practice, and master the meta skills.
I’ve finally identified the 10 meta skills every guy should aim for. I’ve put them in order of importance AND structured them into a complete system, allowing you to be, do, and have anything you want in life… it’s a literal cheat code.
So much so, I’m beginning to see myself as an apprenticing polymath.
A polymath is defined as: a person of wide-ranging knowledge or learning.
Think:
Yes, the super-smart guys who seem to know everything about anything.
The crazy part is, you can become one, too.
The META10 Framework
Now, if the idea of becoming a polymath doesn’t excite you, these skills are still extremely relevant to you—quite frankly, to anyone who wants to move through life with ease, confidence, and independence.
The META10 framework gives you the power to go from unknown to known, capable, and evolved in any domain of mastery you wish to pursue.
THAT is the power of meta skills.
They span across all areas of the human experience.
Regardless of who you are…
What you desire for your life…
Or where you’re at right now…
The META10 framework will work for you.
If you’re here because of anything close to how an AboveMen member thinks and operates, you’ll be excited by the idea of being a man of deep AND wide knowledge who can span industries. Here’s the overview:
This entire framework hinges on one foundational principle, without which the framework itself loses its power (though the individual skills remain critical regardless):
In order to leverage this, you must have a clearly defined goal—a target to aim for, to know where you’re headed and to create distance between you and your future self. Without that, how does one determine if there’s even a need to improve, change, or evolve?
Yet, if you’re reading this, my assumption is you have at least some sort of goal. A general direction, at minimum, of where you want to end up. That will always be the starting point. You could even argue that Stage Zero is setting the target. Goal-setting is a meta skill in and of itself, but we’ll leave the entirety of that for other memos.
The issue with most men today is that you’re so blind to your current way of operating, the only time you become aware of your deficiencies is when someone else points them out… and when that happens, it means it’s really bad.
Ninety-nine percent of humans don’t give a fuck about you (sorry to break it to you), so you need Personal Responsibility. Take the results of your life into your own hands instead of leaving it up to others. That also means other people will ONLY go out of their way to give you feedback on your way of operating when it’s personally affecting them.
When you’ve reached such a place of inappropriate actions, they have to metaphorically slap you and say:
“Dude, why are you doing this? Cut it out and change.”
That’s what people refer to as a “wake-up call.” In young men, I often see it during breakups.
You get broken up with by who you think is the love of your life. This gives you a wake-up call that you’re doing something horribly wrong, which led to the breakup. You commit to making serious changes as a result.
Self-awareness prevents 90% of these cases by allowing you to see where you’re messing up before it gets out of hand.
When it comes to Personal Responsibility, guys will take one of two paths when they experience hardship like a breakup, getting fired, or being cut from a sports team.
Once you can own and take responsibility everything that happens in your, regardless of if you directly caused it or not, you be in 100% control of your life.
Once you’re aware of what’s missing (the gap)—be it skill, knowledge, connections, etc.—you need a way to fix it. This is where Critical Thinking and Problem Solving come in. These two skills let you turn virtually any big, vague issue into a clear, actionable plan, so you can see the path ahead instead of stumbling around in the dark.
I’ve always been a deep thinker with a strong desire to solve complex problems. It’s opened a lot of doors for me. More importantly, I’d argue these two skills are why I’ve held so much confidence (with a dash of naïveté) in the face of any challenge or opportunity. I simply know, deep down, that with enough time I WILL figure it out. That belief unlocks endless possibilities.
I’m not going to cover everything needed to master these two skills, but here’s a great framework to follow when thinking critically about problems.
Think of this as your quick problem-solving roadmap:
Others Tips
Once you find your ideal solution, you’ll see exactly which gaps you need to fill to hit your goal.
You must learn how to upgrade your skill set rather than just wishing things would be different when a gap is found in your skills, knowledge, or life.
This is the idea that you don’t have to know everything—you just need to learn what’s most relevant, right when you need it. Once you’ve identified where you’re lacking and what potential solutions exist to fill the gap, you can approach learning with a clear, narrow focus.
I’ll be honest—I rarely read a book from front to back anymore since embracing this skill. I only pick up books for two reasons:
So, when I do pick up a book that may have the answers I’m looking for, I actively scan it for the specific solutions to my specific gap—NOT reading every single page. I aggressively seek out the exact topics that will help me formulate the solution.
How I consume books (or any learning material):
With that said, I’ve found another evolution of this method using AI:
When you shift from learning for learning’s sake (which isn’t a bad thing) to targeted learning, you move faster in the right direction with certainty, and can implement your findings immediately (which is most important). Learning becomes easy and enjoyable when you have a clear problem to solve. Now, you need to be willing to change.
Once you pinpoint the knowledge you need to close your gaps, the skill of Adaptability ensures you stay flexible enough to implement that knowledge effectively. It’s the willingness to let go of old beliefs and habits that no longer serve you, especially when new evidence or better approaches come to light.
Think of Targeted Learning and Adaptability as a powerful duo: one helps you acquire precisely what you need, and the other ensures you’re willing to pivot and apply it in real time.
How I’ve improved my ability to adapt has largely been through repetition of change, but this skill is also dependent on many of the other meta skills.
Your pathway to developing a strong willingness to change:
Remember: The oak breaks in the storm while the reed bends and survives. True strength lies not in rigid resistance but in conscious adaptation.
Your journey toward greater adaptability isn’t just about surviving change—it’s about thriving through transformation. Every step toward flexibility is a step toward freedom. The question isn’t whether you can change; it’s how far you’re willing to grow.
This is where high achievers separate themselves from the rest. You can do everything right until now, but if you can’t keep the changes you’re making, you’ll inevitably fall back into your old self. This is where discipline and anti-fragility play a huge role in the framework.
Discipline is the rail on which true freedom sits. When you want to accomplish something, the vehicle of accomplishment doesn’t always come from luck or skill, but it always comes from the discipline to do what is needed, regardless of emotion or temptation.
If you don’t trust yourself right now to make lasting changes in your life, discipline is likely the area to focus on. Say you want to cut down on junk food—you start strong the first week, but by the third week, you’re back to your old ways. You lose a bit more trust in yourself each time.
Discipline was the missing piece.
It’s executing on commitments—even when you’re tired, busy, or just “not feeling it.”
I’ve written an entire memo on how to architect a disciplined life. I recommend reading it if this is an area you struggle with (and from coaching 100+ men, discipline is often the biggest weak point).
“Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.” ― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
Nassim popularized the concept of anti-fragility in his book, and it’s a meta skill all ultra-successful men have employed, whether they know it or not. The amount of hardship you’ll face as you rise in life is unimaginable.
When hardship hits, how do you perceive and approach it?
That’s the difference between a boy who stays stuck where he is and a man who embraces challenges with open arms.
Anti-fragility encourages you to look at setbacks not as reasons to give up, but as data points that help you become even stronger. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” as Friedrich Nietzsche (and famously Kanye West) said. Cue “Stronger.”
It’s like lifting weights: the muscle fibers tear and then rebuild tougher than before. The tearing is mandatory in order to grow.
Handling life is the same way:
Stop looking for it to get easier.
Start becoming better at handling life.
When you reach the point where EVERYTHING that comes into your life can be used to make you stronger, NOTHING will hold you back.
The skills here blend the internal with the external, allowing you to integrate what you’re observing, solving, learning, and adhering to.
A big misconception about communication is that it only applies to interacting with others. You use it every day with yourself.
So first and foremost, communication is a way to gain depth and understanding of your current focus, whether it’s:
From there, we move from single-player to multiplayer. Until now, we’ve focused solely on you and skills that largely impact the individual.
But life is a multiplayer game; you need to interact effectively with others to get what you want, especially if you’re aiming high.
Communication is THE way you interact with others.
It’s THE bottleneck or amplifier for your ability to achieve everything you want.
So I encourage you to develop your communication skills:
Communication is the lubricant between thought and achievement. The better you are at communicating your ideas to yourself and others, the easier it becomes to get what you’re after.
Emotions, whether we like it or not, play a huge role in our lives as men. The sad reality is we’ve been told to suppress and ignore them, which I don’t believe is the right answer.
Sharpening your ability to understand and manage your emotions—and those of others—sits at the bedrock of the META10 framework. Learn to let emotions into your awareness. Befriend them; they have an incredible ability to influence you, both positively and negatively.
So it makes sense to be in control of how they influence you.
I know for me, I used to let my emotions take over, which resulted in me breaking commitments to myself time and time again. Whenever I felt overwhelmed and anxious, I would isolate, order junk food, watch Netflix, and ignore all my problems.
Over time, I’ve learned how to navigate and work with my emotions as indicators rather than dictators.
Just like you, others have emotions—surprise.
That means we also need to understand theirs if we want to maintain great relationships, lead teams, and achieve our goals in a win-win fashion.
The four pillars of emotional intelligence:
Developing emotional intelligence isn’t a linear journey but a spiral of continuous growth—like all meta skills. Each competency builds upon and reinforces the others, creating a powerful synergy that elevates your personal and professional impact.
None of these skills exists in a vacuum, nor are they meant to be used in a strictly linear fashion.
Self-Awareness, for example, helps you realize where you need more Targeted Learning. Adaptability makes you better at Communication because you’re not clinging to outdated ways of expressing yourself. Discipline strengthens your Emotional Intelligence by keeping you grounded when life tests your patience. They all feed into one another, forming a tight ecosystem rather than a linear instruction manual.
Once you see how seamlessly they intertwine, you’ll understand why building each skill leads to exponential progress.
That’s the real power of the META10 framework: it’s not about stacking more hacks onto an already shaky foundation. It’s about upgrading your operating system so that every new experience, every tough problem, and every ambition has the fertile ground it needs to flourish.
-Cam Russelle
Founder & Leader of AboveMen
Memo Issue: #0015
