The Monarch Order
Scholar · Warrior · Leader
A weekly letter from the Monarch Order
Letters to a Young Man.
A man isn't born. He's built. No one teaches boys how anymore. These letters do.
Philosophy, history, war and science: thousands of years of evidence on what it takes for a boy to become a man. Every week, these letters turn that evidence into one lesson he can live by, to educate him, develop him and make him a man worth following. Written for the young man, and for the parents raising him.
Inside every letter
I. One story
A general, a philosopher, a fighter or a builder, and the moment that made him.
II. One principle
The idea underneath the story, in plain words he can use this week.
III. One mission
A hard thing to do before the next letter arrives, plus one question for parents to ask at dinner.
“
Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations, Book X
What the letters build
Three disciplines. One man.
Scholar
He reads before he scrolls. Stoics, strategists and statesmen, taught so a 13-year-old remembers them and uses them.
Warrior
He trains his body and keeps his word. The discipline of the mat, carried into school, home and everything else.
Leader
He speaks for himself, serves his house without being asked, and steps up when no one else will.
The teachers in the letters
Marcus Aurelius · Miyamoto Musashi · Sun Tzu · Seneca · Leonidas · Alexander the Great · Benjamin Franklin · Frederick Douglass · Theodore Roosevelt · Muhammad Ali
Ancient to modern. Warriors, thinkers, athletes and builders.
For parents
The conversation you want to have with him, ready every week.
Each letter ends with one question to ask at dinner. No lecture and no fight over screens, just a story worth talking about and a mission you can hold him to.
For him
Written to you, not about you.
No one is going to hand you a standard. These letters give you one: how to train, how to think, how to lead, and what the men before you did when it got hard.
Who writes them
Arthur Chivichyan
Founder, Monarch Order · USC Faculty · Former No. 1–Ranked U.S. Judoka
Arthur comes from an elite pedigree. He is a former No. 1–ranked judoka in the United States and the owner and head instructor of Hayastan MMA Academy in Los Angeles. He has also served on the faculty at USC for eight years, teaching self-defense, self-protection and crisis management.
As an entrepreneur, he founded The Elite Institution, a pioneering model for youth education, mentorship and lifestyle design, and the Monarch Order, a brotherhood for boys 11 to 18 built on three disciplines: Scholar, Warrior, Leader. He has worked with professional athletes, military personnel, senior government officials and educators, and has helped more than 1,000 young people across the country.
In every one of those rooms, I've seen the same thing: young men capable of far more than anyone has asked of them. I built the Monarch Order to ask more of them. These letters are where it starts: the stories, the principles and the hard things I tell the boys on the mat, written down for yours.
If he's ready to be asked more of, these are for him.
Free · Every week
Start with the next letter.
Read it together, or read it alone. Founding seats in the Monarch Order open to readers first.
Letters to a Young Man
Written in Los Angeles
