About
Richard Gain
Founder
What AreteFortis means
Our name joins two ancient words. Aretē, from Greek, means excellence: not excellence at a task, but excellence of character — being the best version of what you are meant to be. Fortis, from Latin, means strong, brave and steadfast, which is what I believe we all need to be in order to build a better world for all of us.
Together, AreteFortis means excellence of character, held with strength. It's the person who knows what they value, lives by it, and doesn't bend when life pushes back. That is who this journey is designed to help you become.
Where does this wisdom come from?
AreteFortis isn't a collection of clips or borrowed ideas stitched together. It's the result of a lifetime of study, reflection and lived experience: what I've learned, often the hard way, about what makes a life truly good. This has been my calling for as long as I can remember.
It was my daughter, Alessandra, who first set me on this path. When she was younger, I would share with her the wisdom I lived by: the sayings that had guided me, what we now call Words to Carry. She would always ask, “Where do you get all of this from? And where can I find it? You need to write it down somewhere, so I can keep coming back to it and remind myself.” Her words stayed with me. Many years ago, they were what first got me putting pen to paper, and those early writings became the foundation of everything you’ll find here.
It draws on three sources: ancient wisdom that has stood the test of thousands of years; modern thinking and research; and real, lived experience, my own and that of the many people I've learned from along the way.
The videos you'll find each month are carefully chosen voices that reinforce the teachings. But the teachings themselves, the path, and the way it all fits together are our own. You won't find this anywhere else, because it was built to work as one whole.
And it isn't about following my life. It's about giving you the wisdom and the tools to design yours.
Why not just ask AI?
The experience behind each teaching is real and human. It carries real human emotion, something AI cannot feel. AI can tell you what people have written about life, but it can't tell you what it's like to live it. It has never been let down by someone it loved, never sat alone with its thoughts for a year, never rebuilt itself from the inside.
Everything in AreteFortis starts from lived experience: my own, and the wisdom of people who lived long before us. What matters, what comes first, and how it all fits together come from a lifetime of living it, not from predicting the next word.
What changes people is connecting with the human experience: disappointment, sadness, struggle, happiness, the emotions we all feel and recognise in each other. That's what you'll find here. Along with a clear path, a reason to keep going, and the company of others walking it too.
Why this exists
For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to promote a better way to live — one that actually makes sense.
When I look at the world and the mess it is in, I see a single cause beneath almost all of it: people chasing the wrong things, because they were told those were the things worth chasing. And here is what gives the game away — the ones who supposedly won, who got the money and the status, do not seem happy either. I have met a great many of them. The scorecard fails even the people winning at it.
This has been building in me my whole life. I have never fitted neatly into the usual mould, and I have never been driven by profit for its own sake — a bigger house, a bigger car, a longer list of things to own. I want to live comfortably, of course. But beyond that, I would far rather live in a society that is comfortable than be one of a handful who are.
Why me
I am no guru, and I will not pretend to be one. What I am is someone who has genuinely lived.
I am approaching sixty. I have travelled widely and lived in several countries. I have raised a family. I have started businesses — made money, and lost it. I have seen a good deal of what this world offers and what it quietly costs, and I would count myself experienced in the one thing that matters here: the game of life itself.
Somewhere along that road I grew certain of something. We are intelligent beings, capable of far more than spending our short lives chasing something as thin as money for its own sake. We were built for higher and worthier things than that.
What I want this to become
I want to leave the world better than I found it. And I have come to believe there is only one real way to do that: to change lives. The only way to change a life is to change how a person thinks — what they value, what they measure themselves by — and to show them there is another path.
That is the work I intend to give the rest of my life to. Not to build a fortune, but to make a difference — so that one day I can say, honestly, that I did.
My hope is that this grows into a global movement. A genuine force for good, in a world that has far too little of it and is quietly crying out for another way.
I am humble about a great many things. I am not humble about this. I hold it with strong conviction, real fire, and an ironclad will to build something that matters and to see it grow. There is nothing vague or airy here. It is deliberate. It is determined. And it has already begun.
AreteFortis gives you the knowledge to live intentionally, not acquisitively. Alignato is the tool to design the life you actually want and stay on track. Together, they are a path — not to more, but to better.
"People sometimes ask me what my greatest accomplishment is. My answer is simple: knowing that I'll leave this world better than I found it. That's the measure I live by, and it's the one I hope every member of AreteFortis comes to live by too."
— Richard Gain, Founder
If any of this lives in you too, then you are not alone. Come and build it with us.
— Richard Gain, Founder