Czech teen helps others improve their self-image
Martin Silar focuses on self-improvement. Prague is in the background. Photos submitted
By Tom Victoria
Martin Silar is looking to make the world a better place via his content creation and coaching.
The Czech Republic teen explained why self-improvement is his passion.
“When I was younger, I've struggled a lot with my self-image and how I looked,” he said. “I started following a few people on the Internet who had this message of being strong and doing the right things and avoiding several addictions. As I started to follow them, my life improved. I wanted to share it with other people because I believed that if everyone improved, the world would be a better place.”
Martin, 18, addresses self-image.
“My message is that everyone can improve their looks, but there are certain things that you cannot change about your face that you just have to accept and that's totally fine,” he said.
Martin said young people deal with poor self-image and engaging in bad habits.
“It's combination of those two things,” he said. “People have become more self-aware because of social media. They see these fake people that have perfect genetics even when they're photoshopped. They don't see the normal looking average people because those don't get likes. That's why people are more self-aware than they've ever been. Modern day addictions also play into this role where people eat junk food all day and they are more overweight.”
Martin had to overcome slipping into the bad habit of poor diet.
“I ate with my friend KFC almost every day,” he said. “It was awful. I felt horrible about myself. At that time, I stopped working out. When you stop doing the positive habits, you pick up on the negative ones just to fill out that void.”
Martin practices a regimen throughout the week.
“I work out five times a week,” he said. “I have two rest days and one day cardio. I also have a skincare routine that's very basic. I apply moisturizer and sunscreen. That's really all you need and also basic grooming and stuff like that.”
Martin said youth fight weight and skin problems.
“Those two go hand in hand,” he said. “When you eat in surplus, you tend to eat foods that are high caloric and they tend to be not healthy. That creates acne problems, and you become overweight. You become less active and you lose motivation to even take a shower, so those things compound together. There was this one time where it was in my lowest point, I barely took showers because I didn't have the motivation to do so. So it's not only the addictions, but also the lack of motivation.”
Martin said typically some event leads to a person developing bad habits.
“I believe that there is firstly an event where you perhaps have some trauma or you get sick,” he said. “You cannot do the things that you're normally used to. You get closer to these addictions because they're nice. They feel nice and you feel good doing them, but in the long term, they destroy you. After that, the lack of action follows.”
Martin said the less one does, the less motivated that person becomes.
“It's delaying gratification where you don't take the sweet sweetness right now, but you wait for it,” he said. “And that's perhaps exercise.”
Martin was a pre-teen when he realized he could make changes to his life.
“The first change was when I started exercising when I was 10 years old with my father,” he said. “It started a series of several different things for me, one of which was looksmaxxing, which is improving one's looks.”
Martin immediately noticed a difference in how he felt.
“I had a lot more energy and this life force where I wanted to do something great,” he said. “I wanted to do something that I never thought of doing. When I started working out, I had less interest in the bad habits.”
Martin then focused on mindset.
“I also started to look into the mental side, which is meditation and therapy,” he said. “That helped me with some trauma that I've had in past to overcome it.”
Martin centers on self-image to reach an audience.
“I'm trying to stay in the looks things because it's in a niche,” he said. “When you're starting out, you cannot do broad topics because you want to focus on a small specific subset of people who have these problems that no one covers. You become their new guy and once you get some relevance, you can spread out to more of these things like smoking. I see this in young people that they mostly use vaping. I don't know if it's better or worse, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. It's also a coping mechanism.”
Martin said video game addiction is another issue.
“When someone plays a lot of video games, they're most likely escaping from an unfortunate reality,” he said. “Instead of working towards a better future, they're putting all of their effort into this video game. They have this sense of achievement when they are really achieving nothing. It's easier to push keys than to lift weights.”
Martin said taking steps toward improvement will build confidence.
“The more action you put in, you will see the results and you will gain this ego that tells you that you've already done this,” he said. “It's not a big deal. You need to firstly do things while being scared, while not being motivated, and the momentum rolls with it. It has this snowball effect that the more you do, the more you will want to do so.”
Martin said improving fitness is a productive first step.
“I believe that everyone should work out,” he said. “It doesn't have to be lifting weights. It can be just walking. How many Americans would lose their weight if they just walked more and ate less? I don't know the statistics, but America has an obesity crisis. This would greatly help.”
Martin noticed he could do more things because of improving his fitness.
“I would say pull-ups,” he said. “Surprisingly, a lot of people cannot do a single pull-up. It's amazing how many people are unable to do that.”
Martin’s coaching can be scheduled and he also has a discord server.
“You just have a few chat rooms and voice channels and a set of rules and that's basically it,” he said.
Martin wants to broaden his appeal.
“Just the YouTube channel, I want to get it to 100k subs in the next like three, two years,” he said. “I don't know if that's possible, but I'll try. I want to create a community, a paid community, or I will personally help these guys who have these problems that I've had. I believe that's something valuable that I would have used when I was younger.”
Martin wants his followers to learn one lesson before all others.
“It's not as much about how you look,” he said. “It's about how you present yourself and your ideas. Because really, the face doesn't matter, only the ideas that matter.”
Marin works out to stay fit.
Martin stays motivated by looking to the future.
“You need to be delusional to some extent,” he said. “You have to create a reality that doesn't exist yet, where you have the things that you want and you just have to go after it. Because what's the other option? Let time pass by. You can either stay in the same place or even decline or work towards the better future.”
Martin dispensed advice for someone starting a YouTube channel.
“It would be focus on what you're interested in,” he said. “You will not make videos on a topic that doesn't interest you. It's not a viable strategy for the long term. And when you have picked one niche, don't do any other niche. You will have this shiny object syndrome where you will see that this type of content does good and another content does even better. But if you stay into one niche for a long enough period, you will succeed because success is exponential, not linear.”
Martin recommended those seeking self-improvement identify their motivation for doing so before taking any action.
“You need a reason,” he said. “You need a reason why to change, because you will not change for yourself. This self- improvement stuff is nice, but I know parents that smoke and when they had kids, they throw the smoking away because of the child. You need to have a strong reason why.”
Martin’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@justmartiin