Personal Growth

Pop psychology and the broad personal-development adjacent culture sphere have become VERY trauma aware. This is a good thing in a lot of ways, as trauma affects us all. But, I'll break with the mainstream, by contending that myopic focus on trauma is a mistake. And it might be something you don't need to focus on at all to break away from the pain and pattern of the past.

My story (it has a happy ending)

Growing up, for the better part of a decade as a child and young teenager, my mother emotionally dumped on me all her disappointments with my father. His emotional insensitivity, his anger issues, his bullying of her over the very silly issue of keeping the house clean - I heard about them all on practically a daily basis. I spent a lot of my childhood feeling sorry for my mother, my life was kind of an emotional "Groundhog Day" with her - wake up, go to school, come home, listen to mom complain about dad, REPEAT.
Psychologists term this an "emotionally incestuous" relationship with a parent, and apparently, it's something a lot of mothers do with their sons. Which has predictable results when they grow up; it royally fucks up the way they relate to women. As you can imagine, a lot of these men end up pretty simpy, they dramatically overcompensate in trying to be the "nice men" their mothers didn't choose. They become unassertive chumps that can't attract women, they let women walk all over them, or they become male feminists or gay - I imagine in some cases. They end up with crippling cases of "Moma's boy" syndrome. And I'm sure a lot of them end up very angry at women.

You may be thinking...

Oh, meditation... That's like thinking about not thinking, right? I already tried meditation, I suck at meditation! I just get irritated with myself for thinking when I shouldn't be thinking.

Well, you probably haven't had success with meditation yet because your mind needs to warm up, your mind needs some foreplay to meditate. The Blue Sky Protocol is a process that will lubricate your mind like it's in a candlelit, jacuzzi filled with KY jelly with a Barry White album playing in the background.
The Blue Sky Protocol will give your mind the foreplay it needs.

You've probably heard of the myriad benefits of meditation elsewhere; antiaging, memory, neuroplasticity, stress management, and "being present" in social interactions. But what are the immediate, day-to-day benefits? If you are going to devote 10-20 minutes a day to a mindfulness practice you probably want to know what you can expect to get out of it in the short term...

Book Review: A Masterclass on a Lost Art

Years back, my friend Hypnautic recommended Robert Greene's book The 48 Laws of Power to me when I was younger. I liked the illustration of power dynamics via historical examples, battles, political intrigues, and characters. This book takes a similar approach to examining the lives of various scientists, doctors, inventors, writers, and artists.

The world doesn’t give a damn about your personal development efforts.

Some bad news for the single men out there: no woman will ever enthusiastically give you a blowjob because you…

• Have done 20 minutes of meditation every day this week or do Dual N-Back brain training to build mental muscles and be less at the mercy of your impulses and negative thoughts.
• Suffer through cold showers every morning just to get uncomfortable.
• Have been staying up late and waking up early for the last six months working on an Entrepreneurial project that will get you out of the rat race.
• Spend three hours weekly pushing heavy metal in the gym.
• Have been taking public speaking courses to improve your communication skills.
• Your eyes hurt from studying engineering textbooks all night so that you can get good grades in your next exam and the master’s degree that you need for a lucrative professional career.
• Just dropped $300 at the mall to upgrade your wardrobe.
• You’ve chosen to read a long dense non-fiction book about some meaningful subject instead of binging on mindless Netflix shows.
• Avoid the temptation to watch internet porn.
• Read countless Pubmed studies to try to figure out how to fix your health problems.
• Have spent months learning a new language.
•  Eat your broccoli or spinach and say "No!" to all that tempting junk food.

No woman is going to say…

He’s just trying SO hard, I must have his dick in my mouth right now!

Your smartphone is a surprisingly accurate metaphor for your personal development...

You can do personal development either by installing apps or upgrading the operating system.

Let's say your smartphone doesn't have many apps, well you won't be able to do much other than make calls and look at the clock right?
Let's say your smartphone has all the apps you desire but it's running an operating system from five years ago. Its apps are constantly crashing. It does everything very slowly. You can't multitask or easily switch between functions - you will frustratingly be able to see all these apps but not be able to fully utilize them.

How does this correspond to personal development?

Have you ever wished you could summon massive confidence in a business or social setting?

Think back to a moment when you felt supremely confident, accomplished, and unstoppable - how great would it be if you could instantly manifest that indomitable state at the very moments you needed it the most? This article will present a simple technique for doing exactly that using an olfactory state anchoring biohack.

Research has shown that the most effective behavior change from nutrition education interventions occurs when the interventions are behaviorally focused and theory-driven.

From Goal Setting as a Strategy for Dietary and Physical Activity Behavior Change: A Review of the Literature 

How this is implemented practically...

Early in the year on personal development and Entrepreneurial podcasts, we hear a lot about maintaining momentum with our New Year's Resolutions.

And I've been hearing kind of a lot of the same sort of generic advice...

• You should write down your goals.
• The new year could be your best year
• If you failed to accomplish all your goals last year that doesn't mean goals are bad, it just means you should make new goals for the new year.
• Your goals should be S.M.A.R.T (Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-specific).

You might be shaking your head and questioning: Jonathan, are you drunk? No, actually as I write this I'm on day 64 of no booze!

Here I'll explain why biohacking purists, super learners, and orange-tinted-glasses-sporting sleep hackers should actually drink in the morning.

But first I'll invite you to join me in doing some intermittent no-boozing...