#1 – The Highway to Your Highest Self
Last year, I asked Iain McGilchrist what he thought the purpose of life was.
His response was that it was about living in alignment with universal values like truth, goodness, and beauty (see 1 hour 16 mins here).
If you’re unfamiliar, Iain is the author of The Master and His Emissary and widely regarded as one of the most brilliant minds of our generation.
So I’ve since been wondering what he might have been getting at when he said this…
And what follows is my clumsy attempt at an answer.
Please note: what I am about to share is pure speculation based on my own personal experiences—so please take it with a healthy amount of skepticism.
With that said, two widely accepted observations are at the heart of the idea.
The first is that I’ve noticed that when I perform an action that is in alignment with my values, it has an energising, fulfilling, and life-giving effect.
For example, I value creativity and generosity, so when I find ways to “exercise” these values in everyday life, I feel more whole inside and in greater harmony with the world around me.
The second is the idea that each of us has a “sacred centre” within, which is the source of our highest potential Self. This is what surfaces when we’re deep in meditation, prayer, or spending extended time in nature.
This centre is prior to our behaviours, thoughts, and personality.
In ACT, they call it “Self as Context”, Hindus call it the Atman, Christ called it the “Kingdom”, and in IFS, they call it the Capital S Self.
By themselves, these observations are in no way remarkable.
But when you put them together, that’s when things get interesting.
More and more recently, I’ve been wondering:
What if they’re linked?
In other words, what if embodying values is the most direct route to our highest capital S Self?
And the more we exercise them, the more we become—in the flesh—the sacred centre we all carry within.
And what if that’s the purpose of life?
To become this highest potential version of ourselves?
In this view, the world—and all of its struggles, difficulties, and temptations — are really resistance (like weight training) to strengthen our ability to exercise our values in the face of difficulty.
And the more we do, the more we embody our highest potential Self.
In the same way that Freud posited that “dreams are the royal road to the unconscious”…
What if values are the highway to our highest Self?
#2 – Socrates, Psychological Flexibility, & The Dangers of Modern Self Help
I recently interviewed Donald Robertson on his “How to Think Like Socrates” book.
During the conversation, Donald shared a surprising—and somewhat disturbing—insight on how modern self help advice may be leading to a form of psychological rigidity in those who follow it.
(If you’re unfamiliar, research consistently finds associations between this and poorer mental health outcomes.)
This short blog post (2 min read) unpacks the idea and its wider implications.
#3 – Managing Dopamine for Focus and Motivation
This masterclass on dopamine from Andrew Huberman is incredibly valuable.
If I had to narrow it down, my two most important takeaways were:
1.) Dopamine is the neurotransmitter responsible for motivation and focus.
You could almost say it’s a kind of “motivational fuel” that allows us to pursue our goals.
The more dopamine we have flowing internally, the more energy and focus we’ll have available to go after the things that matter most to us in life.
2.) Large dopamine spikes come with a short-term cost.
When we engage in highly stimulating or pleasurable activities, dopamine levels spike — but they are often followed by a temporary dip below baseline.
This means you now have less available for the activity you do next.
This means that stacking highly pleasurable activities before important work can make it harder to engage deeply afterward.
In other words, if you take in something externally which gives you a lot of pleasure—before you work towards an important goal—it can make it harder to engage deeply with (and derive pleasure from) the process of your work.
Before learning this, I used to eat a large, very enjoyable breakfast before starting work in the morning.
Although it might have been technically healthy, it was also highly pleasurable, which meant I was depleting my dopamine supplies (and therefore motivation) before beginning my work.
I’ve since switched to a simpler breakfast of two eggs.
Not only is this easier to digest and keeps me going until lunchtime, it also means I’ve got more consistent levels of focus and motivation throughout the morning.
So, it’s worth asking…
Are there points in your day where you might be unnecessarily stacking stimulation before important work?
And is there anything you could do as an alternative, so that you have more dopamine available for what follows and a steadier motivational baseline?
#4 – Arthur Brooks on the 3 Macronutrients of Meaning
I enjoyed this conversation between Arthur Brooks and Tim Ferriss.
A key takeaway was Brooks’ insight that there are 3 “macronutrients” to meaning:
1.) Coherence
2.) Purpose
3.) Significance
Coherence is about having a philosophy of life.
It’s the story you hold about how the world works, why life makes sense generally, and why your life makes sense specifically.
At any given moment, your nervous system is being bombarded by millions of bits of sensory information—photons of light, vibrations, and chemical signals, most of which are outside of conscious awareness.
Your philosophy is what enables you to organise this unfathomable complexity into a story that makes sense. Without one, everything would appear as random and meaningless chaos.
Some people turn to science for this.
Others turn to religion.
And yet others still form their own unique lens using an eclectic mix from a wide range of sources.
The more coherent your story of life is, the more meaning you will experience.
The second is purpose.
Although we often think purpose and meaning are the same thing, Brooks argues that the former is a “subcomponent” of the latter.
Purpose is having a clear answer to the question of why you are doing what you are doing.
It’s also about having a meaningful future to build towards and a pathway to making it a reality.
The third is significance.
For our lives to feel meaningful, we need to feel like we matter to other people.
In essence, this is about being deeply involved in inter-dependent relationships and having people in your life who would miss you if you didn’t show up.
So if you’re struggling to find meaning in life, it can be worth looking through these three lenses.
Some questions to reflect on:
1.) Do you have a coherent story that helps you to make sense of the world and your place within it? If not, what might help you to develop this?
2.) Do you have a clear and meaningful future you’re building towards and a roadmap for making it a reality? If not, is there anything you can do to find more clarity in this area?
3.) Do you have deep and quality relationships with the people that matter most? If not, what can you strengthen these connections?
#5 – A New Theory on Safety as the Foundation of Energy
There is a growing body of evidence indicating a relationship between how safe we feel and the amount of energy we have available to us in daily life.
This short post (505 words) explores Dr. Robert Naviaux’s Cell Danger Response Theory and its implications for our wellbeing and productivity.
**Hat tip to Michael Allison for the heads up on this one.**
#6 – How to Reduce Zoom Fatigue
In a recent interview with Dr. Judith Joseph, she shared some research on what might cause “zoom fatigue”.
During video calls, we are constantly seeing an image of ourselves on a screen.
In the real world, this would be like somebody following you around all day with a mirror—meaning that every time you interact with someone, you’d see your own reflection.
Can you imagine how exhausting that would be?
Research shows that seeing our reflection makes us more self conscious and self critical, with some studies finding significant negative emotional consequences of staring into a mirror for too long.
Which is why the researchers from the Stanford lab who study zoom fatigue recommend using the “hide self-view” button (once you are happy with your camera setup).
Since discovering this, I now place a sticky note over my own video during podcast interviews with a single sentence on it:
“Bring out the best”.
Now, the attention that was previously directed towards my own image is oriented towards bringing out the best in the person I’m interviewing.
Since implementing this, I’m enjoying interviews more, and I find that when I do have something to share, I’m less self conscious about doing so.
If you find video calls draining, give this a try – you won’t regret it!
#7 – The Backwards Law of Personality Change
Earlier this month, I spoke with Olga Khazan, who has recently published “Me, But Better” – an excellent book on the new science of personality change.
A key takeaway was that our thinking on the relationship between personality and goal pursuit is often the wrong way around.
Mostly, our approach goes something like:
1.) Take a personality test to figure out the type of person I am ———> 2.) Use this to determine what goals to pursue.
According to this way of thinking, if you take the Myers Briggs, and discover you are an introvert, then you should pursue goals that suit introverts.
In the process of writing her book, she discovered the work of Dr. Nathan Hudson — a researcher who explores the idea that it’s our goals that shape our personality — not the other way around.
Which means if you choose a different goal, you put yourself on a path towards a different personality.
To illustrate, compare the difference in two (hypothetical) twins that are identical in every single way — even their personality.
Now, imagine that at the age of 18, one decides to become a banker on Wall Street.
And the other decides to become a meditation teacher.
If we visited both at age 30, would it not be likely they would have very different personalities?
This is important because for the most part, we have agency over what goals we pursue.
Which in turn, means we also have agency to shape our personality.
If you choose a different goal, you choose a different personality.
So don’t ask: “what is my personality?” And then choose your goals based on that.
Instead ask: “Who do I want to become?”
And then: “what goals, if I pursued, would most likely lead to this type of personality?”
