This chapter explores why true strength means confronting challenges yourself, rather than outsourcing danger to those who cannot refuse.
Stand on Your Own Power
Don’t Weaponize the Weak
If you have a shield, you don’t hand it to someone who is already bleeding. If you have a voice, you don’t wait for the silenced to shout first. If you have the ability to fight, you don’t stand behind those who have already been fighting their whole lives.
Fighting your own battles is about responsibility, strategy, and integrity. It can be tempting to enlist those with less power—children, the disenfranchised, the oppressed—to carry the weight of conflict for you. But to do so is not resistance; it is cowardice. It is using the vulnerable as human shields while you remain at a safe distance.
The strong don’t send the powerless to do their dirty work. They don’t manipulate children into bearing burdens too heavy for their shoulders. They don’t ask the already bruised and beaten to take one more hit on their behalf. True strength is not about making others fight for you; it is about standing your ground, knowing when to call for allies and when to fight alone.
You will be tested. You will be tempted to pass the fight to someone with less to lose, someone easier to sacrifice. Resist that temptation. Fight with your own hands, your own voice, your own will. Because if victory comes at the cost of those who had no choice, then it is no victory at all—just another form of tyranny.
How to Fight Your Own Battles Without Exploiting the Weak
You don’t hand off your battles to those with less power than you. You don’t expect the already-exhausted to do what you’re unwilling to do. If you have the ability to fight, you have the responsibility to fight, starting here:
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Recognize Your Own Strengths and Limitations – Before seeking external support, assess what you’re capable of handling yourself. If you lack skills or resources, seek to strengthen yourself rather than offloading responsibility onto those with fewer options.
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Develop a Strategic Mindset – Winning a fight isn’t about brute force; it’s about knowing when, where, and how to engage. Strategy prevents desperation, and desperation is what leads people to use others as shields.
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Refuse to Use People as Pawns – If your cause is just, it should not require children, marginalized communities, or those without power to take risks you’re unwilling to take. Ask yourself: Would I trade places with the person I’m asking to fight for me? If the answer is no, you’re exploiting them.
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Take the Hits Yourself First – Leadership means stepping into the fire before asking anyone else to. If you’re not willing to sacrifice for the cause, you have no business asking others to.
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Protect, Don’t Exploit – If the vulnerable must be involved, your role is to shield them, not use them as weapons. Support their rights and autonomy, but don’t manipulate them into becoming your frontline.
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Build Alliances with Equals, Not Subordinates – Work alongside those who have the capacity and resources to fight with you, not those who have no choice but to comply. True alliances are based on mutual strength, not coercion.
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Educate Instead of Enlisting – If you see injustice, empower others with knowledge rather than throwing them into battle unprepared. Education builds lasting change, while using others as tools only perpetuates cycles of exploitation.
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Strengthen Your Own Position – Whether it’s acquiring skills, resources, or allies, focus on making yourself a formidable opponent so that you’re never tempted to rely on the unarmed or unprotected.
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Lead by Example – Demonstrate courage, resilience, and integrity so that others follow willingly, not because they are pressured or manipulated.
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Question Your Motivations – Are you asking others to fight because they are truly the best people for the job, or because it’s easier than facing the consequences yourself? If it’s the latter, you need to recalibrate.
Fighting your own battles is about standing on your own feet, not stepping on someone else’s back to reach higher.
First Task: Start Fighting Your Own Battles, Today
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Handle One Conflict Directly – If there’s a difficult conversation you’ve been avoiding or a situation where you’ve been relying on others to speak up for you, address it yourself. Whether it’s setting a boundary, correcting a misconception, or standing up for yourself at work, take the initiative today.
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Stop Looking for a Savior – The next time you catch yourself wanting someone else to fix a problem for you, pause. Ask yourself: What steps can I take to solve this myself? Then, take at least one concrete action toward resolution.
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Make a Decision Without Seeking Validation – Pick something today—big or small—that you would normally check with others before deciding. Instead of asking for reassurance, trust your own judgment and commit to your choice.
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Strengthen a Skill That Makes You More Self-Reliant – Whether it’s learning how to negotiate, setting firmer boundaries, or gaining a practical skill that makes you less dependent on others, start building your own arsenal of competence. Even small steps, like reading an article or practicing a new approach, will reinforce your ability to stand on your own.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
— Edmund Burke
Historical Reflection
The Children’s Crusade
In 1212, thousands of children—some as young as six, many barely into their teens—were swept up in a disastrous movement known as the Children’s Crusade. They had no weapons, no supplies, no training—only faith and the empty promises of those who should have protected them. Unlike the official Crusades, this was not a military campaign sanctioned by the Church but a movement fueled by desperation, manipulation, and myth. The children did not decide this alone. Adults encouraged them, guided them, and in some cases, exploited them.
The origins of the movement are murky, but two figures stand out. In France, a boy named Stephen of Cloyes claimed to have received a divine vision instructing him to lead a peaceful army of children to reclaim the Holy Land. He preached that God would part the seas for them, that their innocence would bring victory where armed knights had failed. Around the same time, Nicholas of Cologne, a German boy, gathered followers under a similar promise of divine intervention. But neither Stephen nor Nicholas acted alone. Adults rallied behind them—some truly believed in the cause, while others saw an opportunity for power or profit. Local lords and clergy did nothing to stop them. Some actively supported them, encouraging the delusion that their purity could succeed where seasoned warriors had fallen.
What followed was not a holy march, but a death march. Thousands perished from starvation, disease, and exposure as they crossed Europe. These were not warriors, they were children, unprepared for the brutal realities of long-distance travel. When they finally reached the Mediterranean, expecting divine intervention, they found only betrayal. Instead of the seas parting, merchants and ship captains offered them passage, only to sell them into slavery in North Africa and the Middle East. Some were lost at sea. Others disappeared into the brutal reality of servitude. A few survivors made it home, broken and humiliated. Most were never heard from again.
This is what happens when the powerless are weaponized for someone else’s war. The children were not valiant crusaders, nor were they rebels marching of their own accord. They were pawns, led forward by those who should have known better, by adults who failed them at every turn. No kings, no priests, no leaders warned them. No one intervened to stop their suffering. Instead, they were sent forward, too young to understand the risks, too naïve to know they were being sacrificed. Their suffering was not for a noble cause; it was a preventable tragedy, a testament to the cruelty of those who saw them as expendable.