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LOL, this mashup.

Yes, you're right in pointing that out. I'm thankful you put that book on your list, one of the first I got. My google searches didn't provide that compiled clear specific answers to that question as easily as this thing.

How Supernormal Stimuli F*ck with Survival Instincts (many ramifications for humans too) Fish Butterflies Excerpts from: "Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran their Evolutionary Purpose" by Deirdre Barrett

How funny, looks like some of us found it already at a similar time

^ Title says what this thread is intended to be about ^ Resource #1 Stumbled upon this resource / commonplace book, many useful pointers. The Integral Guide to Well-Being: https://integralguide.com/⭐️+Start+Here/About It wouldn't surprise me if the author watched some actualized.org content.

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Not personal: There's a documentary on Netflix called "Tinder Swindler"..., this scam got him thousands of dollars from women he went on dates with...

Where are you looking for it? All of Leo's books are linked to amazon... That book is basically three other works by Wattles in one

hell yes!

"con-artist deprogrammers" took advantage of people's fears and feelings of urgency (one interpretation)

Any recommendations for the purposes of understanding feminism? I'm aware of the book on Leo's book list and will use it as a launching point into understanding feminism. @Emerald said some while ago: @Etherial Cat tagging you here, because you had given a recommendation which I haven't saved. (This thread got deleted once due to the database corruption where two days of forum posts were lost.)

Meta-source as in sites or wikis or dictionaries or people pulling from a bunch of other sources and a wide range of disciplines. http://changingminds.org I found this to be a great resource thus far, reaching a lot of topics from learning to business, persuasion, storytelling, strategy, creativity and much much more (it’s enormous). http://changingminds.org/disciplines/ Here’s for example Joseph Campbell’s ten commandments of reading stories. http://changingminds.org/disciplines/storytelling/telling_stories/campbell_commandments/campbell_commandments.htm

This is just too lit ... BLUE/orange?

I use a VPN too at times. But I could use my ISP, as of now. Wouldn't it make it easier for you @Leo Gura to make this a poll thread?

Leo has an older video on SDS called "Meditation on Steroids"

How about soft when relaxed, hard when contracting? Increasing the range of softness and hardness of your muscles and conscious control over it (being soft or hard at the appropriate times, being able to let go of tension and relax, and flex hard when needed)... nice list. What helps me too is doing shamanic breathing (breathwork in general), and simply feeling deeper into my body (duh:). You might also want to check out the book on Leo's book list under Body Awareness. Some let's call then "energy healers" might help with relaxing too. My knees didn't touch the ground while sitting cross legged and after a session with such a "healer" I could do a full lotus... but given homeostasis and my exercise habits this state didn't last long, ... gotta inch your way to it over time. Also magnesium is supposed to help relax muscles, take a form of Mg which can be absorbed well. Edit: Heard that animals do not stretch but something called pandiculation. Here's a video of a cat pandiculating:

108. Dream Life - What It Takes To Create An Extraordinary Life (https://youtu.be/W1-4UsQVgkM) The deep challenge of building an extraordinary life, and what you’ll have to do to really make it happen. Big Ideas The Problem of Life The question is: how do you actually create that dream life? What is the dream life? You know what it is. It’s that highest ambition you had for yourself before life beat it out of you. Everyone tries to live big at some point, but almost no one succeeds. Why? I remember hearing an old story that will help us understand what’s going on. Story of the Old Lady and the Wolf A long time ago there was a village just outside the woods. In this village lived a simple old lady. One night the old lady goes out into the woods to run a chore. As she wanders through the woods, suddenly, a giant blood-thirsty wolf jump out in front of her. The wolf’s jaws are wide open and his fangs are glaring. The wolf is just about to maul her. Having nothing in her hands to fend off the wolf, the old lady is absolutely terrified. Even a grown man couldn’t handle this wolf alone. So what does she do? The only thing she can: she reaches out and grabs the wolf hard by the tongue. She pulls out the wolf’s tongue past his teeth and starts walking towards the village. When she finally gets back to the village with the wolf, one of the men clubs him to death over the head. Old Lady: 1, Wolf: 0 Moral of the Story So what does this story tell us? Simple: you either go all-in, or you’re fucked! And what does this have to do with the problem of creating a dream life? Simply: You are the old lady! And the harshness of life is that wolf. You either go all-in and face your fears, or you are dead. The only reason you’re not living your dream life is because you’re too afraid. You keep telling yourself that life is dangerous and that you must be cautious. Caution is okay is some cases, but not when you have a wolf in your face about to maul you. Think about it, what would have happened if that old lady hesitantly reached out for the wolf’s mouth? And what would have happened if that old lady let up for even a second while she was dragging him back to the village? Right! He would have bitten off her hand! Going Beyond Tricks and Techniques Many of my videos give you small tips and tricks that you can use to patch up some part of your life. I get it, you want a quick fix that will make everything all better and comfy. I love giving you little techniques, but that’s not ultimately what I’m here to do. I want to show you how to create a transformational, extraordinary life, and I’m kidding about that. To do this, I need you to buy into the idea that you’re going to live your life BIG! This goes waaaaay beyond techniques. If you’re going to half-ass your life, you will get mauled, and it will be painful. You MUST be all-in. You MUST go full-out. Looking For A Quick-Fix Stop looking for the quick-fix. Stop looking for the one secret technique. When you do that, you’re not building an extraordinary life, you’re just maintaining mediocrity. Sometimes I get criticism in my Youtube comments about some of my suggestions being too ambitious, too idealistic. The criticism is: “But this won’t work in the real world!” All of my suggestions work in the real world! But many of them won’t work if you half-ass it. You need to be committed to taking massive action and going above and beyond. Even though you might have landed on one of my videos hoping for a quick-fix, you’ve got to move past that idea and start getting on board with the big vision. Idealism Is Underrated Remember back to a time when you were certain your life would be BIG. Perhaps it was back in school, or college, or even just a few years ago. But then what happened? Yeah, everyday life overwhelmed you. Somehow things slipped and slipped and slipped until you didn’t even bother looking back. But I’m here to tell you that you’ve lost sight of the big picture and it’s time to get back on the horse. Your problem is not that you’re thinking too big, it’s that you are thinking too small! The reason you need all these little patches to maintain your crappy little life is because you’ve been thinking too small for too long, and whatever you think, you get. When you start to think big, many of your petty problems will naturally dissolve. The common objection is: “But that’s too idealistic, unrealistic!” It’s not unrealistic if you commit to growing yourself. The only reason you think it’s unrealistic is because you are a small person. What you’re not facing up to is the courage that you lack to live big. But this can be fixed if you commit. Being idealistic is good. Being idealistic is also hard. Being idealistic requires fearlessness. It Won’t Be Easy If I could wish for you to have one personal characteristic that would guarantee your success, it would fearlessness. Stop looking for easy. What I’m talking about is going be to challenging. But it’s also going to be incredibly rewarding. You will have times when you will want to quit. You will have times when you will want to cry yourself to sleep in a fetal position on your couch. But that’s okay, because this is not what’s really sad. This is a noble way of life. What’s really sad is living the crappy little life that you are living right now. Working your ass off for something big isn’t sad, that’s the glory of life. And it’s also the only way you will be happy. The Dangerous World My ideas and strategies can seem like wishful thinking, but everything I share with you is extremely practical and field-tested. The real problem is that you’ve been conditioned into pessimism by your parents, society, media, friends, and your own past failures. Living a big life in modern society is unnatural. A big life is unnatural and rare simply because it’s much easier and more comfortable to be mediocre. And besides, all your friends are doing it. If you don’t stay conscious, if you aren’t deliberate, if you don’t set very clear objectives, then you will just roll with the flow and become mediocre. Understanding The Real Risk One of the worst assumptions that we pick up when growing up is that life is dangerous. When you believe that, you start to be cautious and timid. You stop making bold decisions and start straddling fences. If the world is dangerous, then you start following the herd. You stop questioning your religion, your friends, your culture, your government, your parents. This assumption runs so deep that it keeps you from reaching out and grabbing that wolf by the tongue. Imagine how you would live your life if you were fully conscious of that fact that your life will be over in the snap of a finger. 1/3rd, 1/2, 2/3rds of your life are already over. All you’ve got left is about 20-50 years, at the most. Right now, somewhere in your life you are telling yourself that you are more safe by holding back and being conservative rather than going all-in. If you go all-in, you will be scared. And you don’t like to feel scared, you like to feel comfy. But actually, the greatest risk isn’t going all-in, it’s not committing to anything. If you don’t commit, your life trajectory is very easy to predict: you will peter out like a dud firework that never bursts. Where is the bang, the spark, the flash in your life? I know that you are holding yourself back because even after all the years of hard work that I’ve done on myself, I still hold myself back. Enough Is Enough I don’t know about you, but I want to live a big life. I’m sick and tired of hold myself back. I want to give my all, and if it doesn’t work, so what? At least I will die in peace. How miserable will I be on my deathbed if I give life a half-assed attempt? Here’s the thing. You are either going to have one of two types of death: an instant death or a slow, drawn out death. If you are living a mediocre life, you better hope for instant death in a car or plane crash, so you don’t have time to reflect on your weak decisions. But chances are you will have a slow death, where you see yourself slowly age and decay into listlessness. Oh, man, is that going to be painful for you. As you slowly decay, you will regret so deeply that you didn’t reach out and grab that wolf by the tongue. You’re going to wonder, “Why was I so afraid? What’s so bad that would have happened?” And at this ripe old age you’re going to be wise enough to see that had you just been a little more fearless, you would have accomplished something amazing. The Real Danger The real danger of life is not that you will get injured, or your family will be threatened, or someone robs you, but that you hear my message and take no action. Is massive pain and regret what you want in your life? Now is the time to ask yourself what you want out of your life. If not now, then when? Are you going to commit to transforming your life and doing whatever it takes? I can guarantee you that it will take everything you’ve got right now, and much much more. This won’t be easy, but it will be rewarding. If you’re not willing to commit to self-actualize, to share your greatest gifts, to live to your full potential, then you are already dead. Bottom Line: Commit to doing whatever it takes to build an extraordinary life. Grab the wolf by the tongue. Go all-in!

Of course! Gotta keep these summaries clean of mentions of Chris E - Haha. Great job to you too. Let's go: we all could have all of the released videos summarized in a year or less! Really humbling to see the entire huge list of hour long videos Leo released until now (and some had to even be re-shot!)

59. Summary: How To Never Quit - The Key To Reframing The Toughtest Obstacles (https://youtu.be/awCmTiN9S_U) A radical, powerful way of looking at obstacles so that you never fall off track with your important goals ever again. Big Ideas The Defining Moment The defining moment in any endeavor or project that you undertake is the point when you feel like all is lost and you will give up. The project either becomes too stressful, too challenging, or too mundane. Your mind is a master at coming up with excuses for why to quit. But this is exactly the moment you should be excited about, because this is what separates the winners from the losers! You have to realize that that moment when you feel like quitting is critical to your success. Winners vs Losers Really successful people, world-class performers, are the ones who lean into the defining moments. They know that obstacles are directly create their success. Mediocre, average people are the ones who quit because they trick themselves into believing that an obstacle is a sign of serious trouble. To achieve anything big in life you’re going to have to learn how to reframe obstacles into opportunities. Successful people do this naturally. They realize that obstacles grow them, toughen them up, and separate them from the competition. The reason most people are mediocre is because they only want to do the things that are easy and comfortable. The point where most people give up is the point where you have to keep going! Your Brain Is A Thermostat Your brain will always try to keep you in homeostasis, even when you’re trying to make a positive change in yourself. Most people are always eager at the beginning of an endeavor, that’s easy. What difficult is pushing through when you feel like giving up. Most people don’t realize that their brains will naturally send them signals to quit once they push their comfort zone a little bit. Your brain works like a thermostat, locking you into whatever mode of performance that you’ve recently been at. Changing the thermostat takes extraordinary effort. Any time you try to change your thermostat, you will feel resistance and discomfort. Value = What’s Rare Realize that the reason you chose to pursue that big goal of yours in the first place is because it’s valuable, rare, and difficult to achieve. It must be this way. If your goal was insignificant, commonplace, or easy to achieve, you would either already have it or you wouldn’t want it. For example, if you’re trying to become a doctor, the reason a doctor is so respected and well-paid is because it takes a lot of hard work to become one. For example, if you’re trying to start a business in a new market, the reason that market is lucrative and open is because it takes a lot of hard work to exploit it. Consider the vast disparity in effort required to become a doctor vs flipping burgers at McDonald’s. Everyone’s In The Same Boat The next time you’re feeling discouraged about your big endeavor, tell yourself to get excited. Because this obstacle will set you apart from everyone else! Knowing that most people are quitters, you can get doubly-excited about every obstacle because you know it will set you apart. Every extra mile that you run in a marathon race is an extra mile that someone else will quit. You have to keep reminding yourself that every obstacle you face, others will face. This holds true for obstacles that don’t seem like obstacles: like the boredom you might be facing in your career right now. Don’t get discouraged! Everyone will experience lulls in their career. That’s just part of the game. Whether your journey is smooth or rocky doesn’t matter. Ultimately all that matters is that you stay on the journey until the very end. Seth Godin’s Dip Seth Godin talks about this topic in his brilliant little book, The Dip. Godin calls The Dip that moment when you are ready to throw in the towel. The key is to ask yourself in that moment whether the endeavor you’re about to quit has heart and long-term potential. If it does, you MUST NOT quit! The only endeavors you’re allowed to quit are the ones that have no long-term potential or conflict with your higher values. If you know the endeavor you’re working on is meaningful, then you just have to reframe every major obstacle as getting you one step closer. Not only is the dip weeding out the competition, it’s also making your stronger, smarter, and more resilient. Just the mere fact that you toughed it out past a major obstacle gives you incredible growth and personal power. If you want to become world-class at anything, the only way is by going through obstacle after obstacle as your competitions gets weeded out. If you want to be a well-known actor, a musician, a politician, or a successful entrepreneur, you will have to go through a gauntlet to filter you out from the crowd. The best filter of winners vs loser is emotional labor. Winners are always willing to endure emotional hardship to reach their goals. Loser never are. Sure, everyone would like to be an actor, an entrepreneur, or an athlete, but are they willing to pay the cost? There are millions of people that want things for free or at low cost. There a many who want things at medium cost and even high cost. But very few want something at great cost. The ultimate competitive advantage is being willing to pay extraordinary cost to get what you want. Purpose & Vision Having a life purpose is so important. It will help you stay on track and tell yourself that the hard work is worth it. What you need to persevere past all the challenges is true vision: a crystal-clear picture of your dream. If you don’t have a vision right now, or your vision is lacking, don’t despair. Vision can be deliberately created. From now on, start seeing every obstacle in your way as a huge opportunity for you to advance and set yourself apart. The next time something catastrophic happens with your endeavor, tell yourself that you just have to keep going. Bottom Line: Don’t let obstacles discourage you. Start reframing every obstacle as a big opportunity to set yourself apart.

(Summary-Guy's aside: I love this episode, powerful. My notes are messy as of now, here's the notes from only the last 14 minutes. Leo recommended re-listening to this episode quite some times every now and then to grasp more and more of the significance of the Content vs Structure distinction. Also see episode "What It Means To Go Meta") 425. Summary: Content vs Structure - Going Meta Is A Super-power (https://youtu.be/eq3htbsa5rk) Many examples of the Structure vs Content distinction; and more ... (last 14 minutes) The chief problem we have is in how we perceive and frame our problems. Root solutions require structural understanding and structural change. Otherwise you just shovel around content The most important structures of the mind you should be studying: Talked a lot about them in the Understanding Self-Deception Series Projection The Trap Of Projection Denial Ideology How Ideology Works Clinging to ideas and beliefs Mechanics Of Belief Confirmation bias Cherry-picking (Summary-Guy's note: Will I ever know what Cherry Picking is? Won't I be cherry-picking to form my notion of cherry-picking? ) Paradigms How Paradigms Work Question Begging Self-bias Self-Bias - Why All Worldviews Are So Skewed Justification ego's modus operandi: behaves selfishly and then hides evidence of it's own selfishness (from Leo's review of "Mist..."; Ctrl+F to search the booklist for "Mist") Moralization A Rant Against Morality How to Stop Moralizing Group-Think Conformity Cult Psychology Cult Psychology - How Cults Work - Part 1 Cult Psychology - Part 2 - The Big Picture Judgment Judgment - How You Ruin Your Own Happiness How To Stop Judging Yourself Demonization Stop Demonizing People! - Why You Are Wrong For Calling Terrorists Evil The Ego Huge topic Emotions Huge topic Meaning making 9 Levels of Increasing Embrace in Ego Development; 9 Stages of Ego Development Series Understanding Meaning, Purpose and Value Storytelling The various roles that you play Dropping The Roles You Play Problems due to lack of structural awareness racism slavery corruption evil nationalism ethnic cleansing religious dogma intolerance violence indoctrination of children war drug war opioid epidemic (in America) scientific close-mindedness denial of the paranormal false equivalency between the political left and right capitalism run amok money in politics demonization of socialism and socialist economics labor exploitation income inequality key insight: those problems are not at the level of content many politicians try to solve them at the level of content voters and politicians see them at the level of content not structure (most politicians aren’t yellow systemic thinkers and don’t know how to go meta and get stuck on content) the problem is not just structural in the sense that government structure needs to change the deeper structural problem is in how we perceive the problem our epistemology and metaphysics are the true structural problems Our Problem Is A Meta Problem the problems are existential and metaphysical tied in with your identity, mind, psyche, worldview and what you think reality is. root solutions require structural understanding problems come from what you think reality is and what you think you are

85. Overcoming Adversity - How To Handle The Most Horrific Life Challenges Ever The key insight and affirmation that you need for coping with life’s worst difficulties. (https://youtu.be/NldvgPxMFVw) Big Ideas The Key Affirmation You Need Affirmation: “I can handle any situation, any challenge life throws at me.” Imagine how you would feel and behave if you really believed that! Say it to yourself for 5 minutes straight, every day, for 60 days and you will start to believe it. Whatever you say to your mind for long enough becomes true. Crazy, but that’s how your mind works. Understand Why It’s True You want to get a sense for why this is true. And here are the key reasons: #1) In your own life, you’ve survived and handled every challenge you had so far. This is true by definition of you being alive right now. Don’t discount the power of this! #2) No, you aren’t a special snowflake. You are something even better: you ARE a naturally programmed survival-machine. Survival Is In Your Genes It’s not even that you are so great. It’s in your genes to be a survivor. Think about this. Your body and your psychology is designed to cope with the most horrible situations you can possibly imagine. You will survive no matter what. You don’t even have a choice in the matter. Consider where you evolved from. Consider the challenges your ancestors faced and realize that fact that you are a born, natural survivor. Here is what your ancestors survived: brutal winters, floods, famine, scorching droughts, tribal warfare, rape, pillage, exile, uncurable disease, poverty, brutal ignorance and total lack of knowledge, oppressive government, brutal racial discrimination, torture, slavery, arbitrary imprisonment, etc. Your problems today are pathetic compared to the REAL problems your ancestors faced 100,000 years ago. So stop whining. You are waaaaay more resilient than you give yourself credit for. Your Challenges Aren’t As Big As You Think Notice that your challenges are not as big as you make them out to be. As a litmus test, how does your current challenge compare to having your family raped and murdered by a neighboring tribe and you becoming a slave? I thought so. What is your biggest screw-up from 10 years ago? Do you even care about it today? What are you most proud of about yourself? Notice how that came out of one of your greatest hardships. Humans As Domesticated Animals You have lost touch with your own natural resilience because you have been domesticated by society. We are all domesticated by society. Humans have domesticated cats, dogs, and cattle, but the greatest thing we’ve domesticated is ourselves. You are a self-domesticated animal, as Don Miguel Ruiz brilliantly points out in The Four Agreements. You Are Designed To Survive You are designed to survive ANYTHING!: rape, death in the family, amputation, war, torture, beating, severe humiliation, abandonment, cheating, etc. You have no option but to survive. The only two options are: die or survive. Stop behaving like your life is full of life-or-death challenges! It’s not! You are catastrophizing. Be more aware of this so you’re not as frantic all the time. The Pit of Despair Don’t get me wrong, the pit of despair FEELS very real. When you’re totally down, the future looks horrible. It really does feel like you will never recover. And that is exactly why I created this affirmation for myself. I never want to feel like there is anything in life I cannot handle, not matter how bad. The fact is that we CAN handle it all, it’s just that we forget and get swept up in the emotions. We also get complacent about how good we really have it compared to 3rd world countries or our ancestors. I am doing 60-days of this affirmation to imprint into my mind, once-and-for-all, that things are never as bad as they seem and that I can handle whatever may come. Two Key Realizations If You Are Really Suffering If you’re going through a very hard time in your life right now, understand these 2 things: You will grow from this experience and come out much stronger. This is a REAL silver-lining, not New Age bullshit. You are short-selling yourself right now. You are much, much more resilient than you give yourself credit for. You’re disconnected from the truth. Read Viktor Frankl If you really want to internalize this idea, read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. His description of surviving holocaust concentration camps will show you how resilient human beings are. It will also put your puny problems into perspective. Realize this: it doesn’t take development of a special character to survive. You are a survivor now, naturally! Bottom Line: Realize that you are a natural-born survivor. Think about how this is true and affirm it to yourself for 60 days straight.

58. Sensitivity - Why Personal Development Is Impossible For You Right Now (This one is an older video which came with a summary of the big ideas presented. It can be found here: https://www.actualized.org/articles/sensitivity) Why you are incapable of really improving your life until you stop looking for ever-greater sources of stimulation. An Important Lesson From Biohackers To become self-actualized you must develop a better sensitivity. What I learned from biohacking: a biohacker has to develop a keen sense of awareness of his feelings and moods. Two types of feedback: objective and subjective. Objective feedback is like an EEG machine that can graph out your brainwaves. Subjective feedback is what you feel in your body, what you’re able to be aware of. For example, if you’re taking lots of supplements, it helps to be sensitive enough to actually feel their effects. Can you notice the effects of taking Vitamin C or fish oil? Do you get more energy? Do you sleep better? Does your point pain improve? Do you become more flexible? Is your workout recovery better? Do you build muscle faster? Same applies to nootropics — take various supplements and drugs to enhance cognitive performance. Sometimes it’s hard to really tell what is happening when you take them. Greater sensitivity can be developed. In fact you should be developing it right now. You can’t really biohack effectively if you don’t develop keen sensitivity. Otherwise you have no criteria to judge against. The sensitively required for successful biohacking is also required for successful personal development. From Biohacking To Self-Improvement Our sensitivity for life has been blown out by society, culture, and media. If you are playing around with psychology and tinkering around with various elements of your life, you have to become very sensitive to the effects on your feelings. Examples: What is the effect of meditation on your life? Do you know? The effect can be very subtle. Drugs: what is the effect of alcohol and recreational or prescription drugs on your life? Thoughts: what is the effect of your thought patterns on your life? Diet: what is the effect of having a high-sugar breakfast, for example? Media: what is the effect of TV, videogames, internet, newspaper, etc. on your consciousness, on your mood, on your performance? For many of us, our palates have been so blown out that we can’t notice subtle positive changes to our lives like meditation. Media Is Boiling Your Alive Like A Frog The effects of media are both very subtle and very powerful. This is a paradox. But not really. Perceived effect depends on your perceptive abilities. You are under-performing in life and don’t even recognize it. Negative friends, TV, internet, bad nutrition, lack of exercise, etc. are all adding up and robbing you of a lot of performance, all outside your awareness. Consider the old boiling-frog analogy: if you take a frog and set him into boiling hot water, he will jump out. But if you take that same frog and set him in lukewarm water and slowly crank up the heat, he will boil to death. Why does this happen? Because he fails to perceive subtle changes added up over time. You are frustrated and unsatisfied with your life because subtle influence have, over time, added up and drained you of your power. This effect is MUCH stronger than you admit to yourself. Examples Of Insensitivity Example #1: after I cut out cable TV for several years, I became extremely sensitive to commercials. It’s like, Wow! You can hardly believe how toxic commercials are until you don’t watch them for a few years. But if you are a habitual TV-watcher, you won’t even believe me right now. You are thinking, “Commercials? What’s the big deal? Stop being a pussy.” Example #2: diet. If you’ve gone through the process of cleaning up your nutrition, you’ve have a very powerful ah-ha moment when you looked back at how you used to eat and said to yourself, “OMG, how could I have been be irresponsible? How was I even able to get up in the morning?” Example #3: sugar. After you ween yourself off sugar and restaurant foods, you notice very starkly just how sugar-laden all commercial food is. You need to become more sensitive because right now you are literally being boiled alive by culture, media, and society! Winetasting And Blown Out Palates Why does this happen? Because your palate has been blown out. I use the word “palate” because it’s used in the wine-tasting world and it’s very appropriate here. I don’t even like wine, but when I took a wine-tasting course I was shocked by how sensitive professional wine-tasters are. They develop discernment for ridiculously nuanced aspects of wine. Yet me, I can hardly tell a Pinot Noir apart from a Cabernet. Why does this happen? Because my brain is literally no wired up to distinguish between the various tastes and smells of wine, and so I cannot perceive them. Kinda freaky! As a culture we want to be titillated and overwhelmed with bold flavor. Think about: blockbuster superhero movies, double bacon jalapeno cheeseburgers, atomic hotwings, horrific news headlines, controversial books, top-10 lists, ugly celebrity photos. The problem is, when you allow yourself to get blasted with so much stimulation, you lose sensitivity to life. Another example: cooking and Cholula. I got so accustomed to dousing all my meals with Cholula hotsauce that when I started to learn cooking, I couldn’t understand subtle favor combinations. If you hand someone a complex dish with delicate flavors and he douses it with a 1/2 bottle of Cholula, what’s the point?! That is what’s happening if you live a mainstream life: you are insensitive to the beautiful subtly and richness. Why Your Personal Development Efforts Have Been Failing You can’t even appreciate the powerful effects of the personal development techniques that I could teach you, because you won’t feel their effects right away. If I put you on 2 weeks of affirmations, visualizations, journaling, and meditation, you would not continue the habit because you don’t even feel the positive effects — even though they ARE there. We would have to ween you off stimulation for several months for you to be able to really recognize the effects of the positive work that you’re doing. The reason personal development fails to work for many people is because they pick up one book and try a technique or two but they don’t have a developed enough palate to appreciate the results, and so they quit. This problem actually goes even deeper: you are simply missing out on the full range and beauty of reality. You are not experiencing the richness of life! Which would you rather do: watch the latest blockbuster movie in the comfort of your own home under a nice cozy blanket, with your spouse cuddly near you, with a big oily, salty bowl of popcorn and a glass of cold Coke, or mediate quietly alone in an empty room? It’s a no-brainer! Who would ever want to meditate? Meditation is a subtle pleasure. It cannot compete directly with the thrill of sex or entertainment. The Low Consciousness Mindset In his brilliant book, Mastery, George Leonard builds a strong case for how culture promotes an anti-mastery mindset. Our culture tells us to expect endless climax. But reality is mostly mundane. If you go into things expecting your mind to be blown, you are limiting yourself so much. Most people don’t have a solid career because they can’t handle the mundane work required to develop one. What zone of existence are you living in? Low consciousness or high consciousness? Low consciousness means you’re after: entertainment, a promotion, validation from others, sex, money, tasty food. High consciousness means you’re after: truth, beauty, excellence, justice, order, tranquility. You won’t have a fulfilling, rewarding life if you’re stuck pursuing low consciousness values. Getting Back To The Joy Of Being A Kid Again There is a natural joy that comes from simply being in reality and taking it for what it is. A tree, a car, the sun in the sky, the stars, looking into a grocery store clerk’s face. Those are beautiful things that you no long appreciate. As a child you felt happy because you were sensitive to everything. You took in the beauty of reality. You can never get enough stimulation. Real, lasting enjoyment only comes from subtle appreciation. You need to STOP looking to be spoon-fed the best of the best. Stop seeking maximum comfort and stimulation. If you don’t, you will become a lazy slug. You are behaving just like a heroin junkie! You need hit after hit after hit, and it’s destroying your life. How To Become More Sensitive You CANNOT do effective personal development from a low consciousness state. From now on, start becoming very sensitive about the effects of even very small actions/behaviors on your life. For example, if you hit the snooze button on your alarm 3 times and wake up 15 minutes late, notice how this affects your mood, your performance at work, your diet, etc. Start to notice how the simple actions you take (or fail to take) affect your life. How did that lunch affect your whole life? How did the negative thoughts you had in the shower affect your whole life? The best way to become more sensitive is by eliminating the worst sources of over-stimulation. Your homework: sit down right now and identify the top 3 worst sources of over-stimulation in your life. Write them down. Now commit to eliminating them for 30 days. And most importantly… as you do this, stay very alert to how your consciousness improves. What I want you to take away is NOT that you should get rid of bad habits. No! This is a deeper issue! Adopt a new philosophy. Your new philosophy is that you pursue high consciousness over low consciousness. Bottom Line: Your palate for life has been blown out by culture and addictive behaviors. Become more sensitive to the subtle richness of life. Bottom Line: Your palate for life has been blown out by culture and addictive behaviors. Become more sensitive to the subtle richness of life.

228. Mindfulness Meditation - A Complete Guide With Techniques & Examples (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPUWdhHDKS4) The fundamentals of setting up a mindfulness practice; the 20% of theory that's going to give you 80% of the results. Mindfulness is one of the most important skills to develop yet we aren’t taught about it. It’s a very important tool. Mindfulness is experiencing reality literally, exactly as it is. Reality comes to you through your senses. [newer blog post: Sense Organs Are Imaginary] That’s all you have of reality, and it’s changing every second. Most people live day-to-day in their fantasies, filtering out the raw information, thinking about the future or the past. You are caught up in a conceptual life, not grounded in what is literally there. There are three important components: Focus – ability to put awareness of selective sensations for a long period of time (a very rare skill these days) Sensory clarity – how clear are you about the raw data coming in. Clear the lens of your mind Equanimity – experience and emotion/phenomena and not react to it in an emotional way (to be stable and grounded, and not go into a reactive state) All of these practiced simultaneously are mindfulness. You start to see a whole new world when you practice mindfulness. The Basics: Every 10 second cycle: (Note, label, savor) Locate an object and note that you are looking at it Label (silently) it “see” – to register that you are seeing it Take it in exactly as it is in the present moment for 5-7 seconds. (don’t judge it, just experience it) The above is one mindfulness cycle. The modes are “see”, “hear”, and “feel” For short sounds, hear it and savor whatever memory of it you have. Take in the being of the phenomena without adding or taking away anything from it. Notice it how it is. Distinction between outer and inner sensations. Your imagination or internal dialogue is an internal sensation. Inner feeling will be emotions, outer feeling will be an itch, touch, your stomach rumbling (even though it’s inside you). Smell and taste are outer feelings. Savor the data without judging it. This is all that mindfulness is. Take a timer and set it for 20 min. Every day sit down and start running these cycles. Let your focus go wherever it goes and do the cycles. Note, label, savor. For a more advanced version. Limit the number of things you let your mind focus on e.g. just inner, just sights, just thoughts etc. Some pointers: - focus on one phenomenon at a time - if a phenomenon is transient then just savor the memory of it or note that it’s gone and savor its absence. - if the phenomenon morphs, just stay with it. - you’re allowed to guess, don’t have to be 100% accurate with your labeling. - may also notice that labeling itself is an inner hearing sensation – don’t label the labels themselves. Just keep it simple. Do this practice every single day. The hardest thing to do is to do it every day. Results will take months to years. Benefits: - enormous levels of awareness and consciousness – 1000 – 100,000 times more than regular people - super focus ability - emotional mastery - reduction in suffering - increased fulfillment in life - behavior change becomes easier - experiences of enlightenment (by focusing on the “I” label)

210. How To Create Your Dream Career - The Ultimate Life Purpose Course (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtUxnmneK50) “Your life is important. Honor it. Fight for your highest possibilities.“ — Nathaniel Branden What are you waiting for? Pursue something in life! Don‘t let life happen to you. Self-Imposed victimhood. Expand yourself continuously. A weak career = Weak backbone = weak foundation (affects everything) weak social life weak hobby life weak rest recreation weak health (physical & emotional) What is your life about? Do you even know? All this is in your favor. What are you doing with it? Wake up! Stop limiting yourself! Live up to your full potential! “If you deliberately try to live below your potential, then you gonna doom yourself to a miserable life.” — Abraham Maslow Contemplate your own death. Holocaust 9/11 Trenches and beaches of Normandy Slavery The Plague Cancer Victims who are going to die in a week or month or tomorrow Car crash victims Plane crash victims This puts your life into perspective. You spend life distracting yourself from the fact that you do have very little of this life left and that you’re pissing it away. Wake the fuck up! Your life is precious. The limits that you feel are there in life; This is not the world limiting you; This is you limiting you. The limits that are there are self-imposed limits. They can be self-unimposed. Finding your Life Purpose Make your life about one thing: Life Calling Dream Career How are you going to contribute to the world in the most meaningful way? If you get this puzzle piece of life right, it’s going to be so rewarding! A shame so few people figured it out. Sweetest Highest Pleasures, Conquering Yourself and Conquering Life. Life Purpose = Most important personal development change you can make. 2nd to enlightenment. How to discover your top passion. How to use it to build your business and dream life. Seek out a life purpose. Congruent. Life becomes beautiful; even when something goes wrong. This is not a Magic Pill. You gotta work this course! (The Ultimate Life Purpose Course) Basically, the course is Leo mind-fucking you into living your life purpose. He takes an emotional approach, not just theory. Life purpose is the engine that drives your entire life. → The Ultimate Life Purpose Course