34 Side Quests That Quadruple Your Aura
Think about your last ten weekends. Pick three of them and describe what happened.
If you’re struggling to do that, there’s the problem.
Your life is on a loop. Wake up, gym, work, scroll, sleep, repeat. Saturday you swap the gym for drinks and Netflix for a different show, and that’s the big variation. That’s the whole thing. When someone actually interesting asks what you’ve been up to, you say “not much, same old” and watch their attention slide just before they change the subject.
And you know that feeling. You’ve been on both sides of it.
Here’s what that costs you:
And no, it’s not just with women - though it costs you there too. It costs you everywhere. The way other men look at you when you’ve got nothing worth telling. The business conversations that happen in the context of doing interesting things (it’s how I got into probably all of my business convos with men way ahead of me in that realm btw).
The friend groups and inner circles form around the man with the interesting life, not the man with the consistent gym split or Huberman-lifestyle. Opportunities go to people who are interesting to be around. Invitations go to men who carry something within them.
Aura is the full weight of who you are when you enter a room.
And that weight is built one decision at a time, out of the specific things you did that nobody else thought to do.
But your routine isn’t all that’s building you. It actually makes you predictable. And being a predictable man is not on our 2026 Bingo card. Nor is it on The Final Man’s prerequisites.
Side quests fix that. And like always, if you’re reading this right now, you’re in for a treat on how to go about banging them out like the James Bond you were always meant to be.
Side Quests Are Not Hobbies
Most men hear “do something different” and go sign up for a pottery class for three months before quitting. That’s not what we mean when we mention side quest. That’s a wasted Saturday followed by a monthly membership fee you forgot to cancel.
A side quest is not necessarily a hobby. You don’t pick one up, practice twice a week for six months, and call yourself a practitioner. That’s a different conversation.
A side quest is a deliberate, short-burst departure from your autopilot of living. A few hours. A day. A 4-day trip at most. You step off the track, do something you’ve never done, and get back on. Recalibrate.
A random solo overnight to a city two hours away. A Saturday morning at a shooting range. Walking into a restaurant alone in a neighborhood you’ve never stepped foot in. An impromptu 6-am surfing session. A one-day sailing intro on a charter you booked last Tuesday with your beautiful woman. A weekend spearfishing trip.
You go in, experience it, and come back with something you didn’t have yesterday. You come back with a story, a reference point, a piece of competence that the man next to you at the office hasn’t picked up in five years - or maybe even his entire life.
The operative word is you’re deliberate with your side quests. Spontaneity is good practice but we’re not doing this just to say we did it. You decided you were going to do this specific thing, you showed up, and you did it. That decision is where the aura starts stacking in the short and long term.
Yet what do most men do? They think about it on a Thursday night and forget by Friday afternoon. You’re going to be the one who doesn’t forget. You’re a Sovereign Architect who designs his future - step-by-step.
What It Costs Your Life to Have Nothing Going On
Men who constantly feed themselves new input carry themselves with something heavier behind their words.
When you’ve done things, you have material. Reference points. Stories with stakes. When someone mentions a coastal city you visited solo last month, you don’t reach for something to say. You have something real you can sum up with ease. The conversation goes places because you have somewhere to take it. You’re a man of experience. Just how James Bond seems to you in movies. You have quite literally become him.
Sharp men want interesting men around them because the conversation is better. Business moves through conversation. Deals happen between people who find each other worth talking to. You don’t get pulled into rooms you have nothing to contribute to. Sorry.
The man with nothing interesting about him pays for it every single day in ways he never traces back to the source. The friend group that stopped inviting him. The woman who lost interest between date one and date three and he still can’t figure out why. The promotion that went to the guy who spent last weekend at a conference in Austin and came back with three new connections and a story the whole office heard by Monday. Every room you’re not in is a room someone more interesting got invited to instead. That’s the cost. And it compounds against you every month you stay on autopilot.
Respect obviously also follows. From men who recognize someone who actually lives. From women who sense something behind you before you’ve explained anything. Every side quest adds on. After a year of stacking them, people feel the weight when you walk into a room. They can’t name it. But they feel it. That is what aura is all about.
Women are a byproduct. A real one. But still a byproduct. The bigger return is the man you become in the end.
Most Men Pick One Lane and Cruise - You’re Going to Build All Four and Fly
Every man who starts stacking side quests falls into the same trap. He picks the ones that feel natural and ignores the rest. The gym guy does all physical quests. The social guy says yes to every dinner but never goes anywhere alone. That’s just reinforcing the same muscle while the others atrophy. Remember, we are the multifaceted individual.
Side quests work in four directions. You need all of them.
Solo.
These are the backbone builders. You go somewhere unknown alone. No wingman to diffuse the tension, no familiar context to fall back on. You walk into a bar you’ve never been to, sit down, and handle yourself deep into the night. You take a solo trip to a city two hours away with one bag and no itinerary. You drive into a corner of your own city you’ve somehow never explored. Small in scale yet enormous in what they do to your nerve. The man who does this regularly develops a calm that cannot be manufactured or pretended.
Physical.
Something that makes your pulse spike before you’ve even started. A shooting range morning. A climbing gym you’ve walked past a dozen times. A motorcycle intro at a track. A kayaking trip through a stretch of river you had to research to find (super fucking fun btw). These are the ones that revitalize you for the next 120 hours. Test boost to the max.
Social.
Say yes to something you’d normally decline. Accept the invitation to the dinner with people you don’t know yet. Actually stay at the networking event. Visit the cigar lounge where a different tier of men hangs out. These put you in rooms with men and women who operate on a different frequency than your usual circle. You come back with contacts, perspectives, and invitations you wouldn’t have gotten from your couch.
Cultural.
Eat alone at a restaurant you’ve had on your list for two years. Catch a jazz set at a small venue on a random Wednesday. Walk through a niche gallery. Spend an afternoon in a museum covering something you know nothing about (maybe even microdose it with an edible if that’s up your alley). People underestimate these side quests. Quiet and they build taste faster than almost anything else. Taste is aura. And you cannot fabricate taste. Never forget that.
Your total magnetic pull grows from all four.
Now that you know what the four categories of side quests are - the ones that will indubitably quadruple your aura in record-breaking time - we’re now going to cover a multitude of side quests, sorted by how much time you’ve got and how much return on investment you will receive in terms of life enjoyment. Tonight, this weekend, next two weeks. This will be very specific that every one of you will be able to follow. Today.
34 Side Quests That Quadruple Your Aura
You don’t need a month to plan this, my friend. You need one decision and thirty minutes of follow-through. And your life has irreversibly changed for the better.
Level One — Tonight (Basic)
Walk into a speakeasy or cocktail bar you’ve never been to solo, ask the bartender to make you something off-menu they recommend. If conversation with anyone presents itself, always take it.
Hit a food spot from a culture you’ve never tried. Haitian griot with rice and pikliz in Flatbush Brooklyn, street tacos from a food truck in East LA, halal cart on 53rd and 6th in Manhattan, Ethiopian injera in DC.
Karaoke night. Go with friends or go solo, doesn’t matter, just get up there. Longtime followers know how much I love karaoke and push all my followers into making this a habit.
Find the best rooftop bar or lounge in your city you’ve never been to, post up, look at the view and let it inspire you for what’s out there.
Hookah or cigar lounge you’ve never stepped into. Sit down, smoke, talk to whoever’s next to you.
Find a casino near you and walk in. Poker table, blackjack, whatever calls to you. Just don’t get too boozed up or go with a fat stack you would hate to lose.
Late-night jazz or blues bar. Let the music carry the night wherever it goes.
Foreign film at an arthouse cinema. Oldboy, Parasite, or whatever’s showing that looks go to your eye (improving your taste).
Visit a museum. This is severely slept on. Book a ticket right now, have a glass of wine or two beforehand, stroll through, start a conversation if someone is intrigued by the same piece you are.
Unplanned drive. Get in the car after dinner, no GPS, no destination, stop somewhere random, sit with yourself for an hour.
Level Two — This Weekend (Trailblazer)
