Excerpt from Preface

A sample of Ten Attitudes: A Primer for Developing a Warrior Spirit

So, what is a warrior? A seemingly simple, yet difficult question to answer. Below is a short excerpt from the preface of my upcoming book, Ten Attitudes: A Primer for Developing a Warrior Spirit. Before I wrote this book, I asked myself this same question, and I realized that there was no definitive answer. Warriors are not so simple where they can be defined in words. The definition comes to you only through experience. You must feel it, more so, you must live it to truly understand. The subsequent paragraphs from my preface merely brush against this subject. For more, please preorder my book at coryzillig.com.

Modern society misunderstands what a warrior really is because, for the most part, we live in an abundant, peaceful society, removed from the terrible reality of the battlefield. The grim, savage men who play there are seldom revered, and more often, feared.

So, what is a warrior? A violent and savage man who kills for a living? Yes. But he’s much, much more.

This is where defining a warrior becomes a difficult task—dare I say, a trap—considering that today our society uses the “warrior” moniker for pretty much anyone facing a challenge. The term has been used to describe athletes, fighters, entrepreneurs, even protesters. Every day, so many people are labeled “warriors,” one would think war is everywhere.

A purist might believe the term “warrior” should be reserved for those who meet their enemy face-to-face, within striking distance of small arms, like assault rifles, grenades, and machine guns.

Warriors know what their enemy looks like because they see them in person. They know what they smell like because they are in physical contact with them. Warriors know the acrid taste of gunpowder and explosive residue in the air, the crack of an incoming bullet with their name on it, and the excitement and fury of a brutal, lightning-fast environment where each moment could be their last.

Warriors don’t just go to war and engage in combat; they know the energy of war and combat. They’re not afraid of this energy’s destructive power but make themselves one with it. It’s how they express themselves as artists of their craft. It’s how they can sense and feel their enemy before seeing, smelling, or hearing him. It’s how they can communicate tacitly with their brothers in close proximity, as if telepathic. It’s how they survive novel and unique combat engagements where no doctrine or experience gives an answer. They do all this by trusting in the premonition and intuition war’s energy gives them.

Warriors are adept spiritual beings out of necessity, and most don’t even know they possess this talent. Not because they’re ignorant, but because war, and all its destructive and chaotic energy, is a part of them. They are one with it and do not see it as separate from themselves. It is simply who and what they are.

Using this description, the term “warrior” doesn’t fit the athlete, the fighter, or the everyday person facing challenges because it centers around the physical arena of war. Multitudes of people in this world never experience the harsh realities of war, including those serving in the military. A disproportionate number of servicemen and women contributing to the war effort seldom come in contact with the enemy. They serve by either providing critical logistical support or kill their enemies from tens of thousands of feet in the air, sometimes remotely piloting a robot half a world away.

War’s energy, the one you find on the battlefield inside the enemy’s home and sanctuary, changes you. You don’t exactly fit the ubiquitous moniker of warrior that’s cast to the masses facing challenges. You’re a destroyer and a hunter and a killer of men.

But is that all a warrior is? No. He’s much, much more.

A warrior cannot be defined. Warrior is a profession. Warrior is a way of being. Warrior is an energy, a spirit that resides in you, a calling that beckons you toward death so you can truly live. Thanks for reading. If your interest is piqued, please go to coryzillig.com and preorder your copy of Ten Attitudes: A Primer for Developing a Warrior Spirit set for release summer, 2026.