1.) The 1 in 10 Rule
While reading The Courage to be Disliked almost a decade ago, I discovered an old proverb that has stuck with me since:
In any group of ten people, you’ll get on really well with two.
You’ll be indifferent about seven of them.
And at least one person in the group will not like you.
Due to the negativity bias, the majority of our mental energy goes towards the one person who doesn’t like us — trying to change their opinion or wondering if there’s something fundamentally wrong with us.
But simply knowing this fact – that about one person in every ten won’t like us, and more importantly, that they don’t have to like us, frees us from needing their approval.
It also enables us to focus on connecting deeply with the people we have natural chemistry with.
2.) Consciousness and The Prodigal Son Pattern
I’ve started to notice a “prodigal son” pattern in some of the scientists and philosophers currently reshaping our understanding of consciousness.
People like Bernardo Kastrup (former CERN scientist), Federico Faggin (inventor of the microprocessor), and Francis Lucille (former aerospace engineer).
If you’re unfamiliar, this story is basically this:
— A farmer has two sons
— One stays at home and works, while the other takes his inheritance and goes out to seek pleasure in the world
— Eventually he spends all of his father’s money and is left penniless
— Then he returns home expecting anger, but is instead met with a warm embrace.
Although a simple tale, it reveals an archetypal pattern of human life and points to a deeper truth about how best to order our values.
We’ve all grown up with the unconscious belief that achieving things in the external world will bring us lasting fulfillment.
Whether it be through our career, a relationship, wealth, or sporting accomplishment.
Then, we get the thing we thought would fill the hole inside, but it never does.
So we find another mountain to climb and begin again, assuming that contentment sits at the top of this one.
What happened to Faggin, Kastrup, and Lucille is that they reached the top of their mountains relatively early in life, and the spell that captivates the rest of us (achievement + accumulation = fulfillment) was broken.
With nowhere else to turn, they had no choice but to reorient their attention inside, towards the very thing through which everything else is experienced:
Their state of consciousness.
As this became the central priority in their life, they found a wellspring of contentment and peace unmatched by anything they could acquire or achieve in the external world.
Before we make this shift, it’s like we’ve got an empty cup and we go out into the world seeking to fill it through experiences, relationships, goals, etc.
After we’ve had our fill, our cup empties, so we set out in search of a new thing to fill it.
However, when our state of consciousness becomes our #1 priority, it’s like our cup is now “plugged into the mains”, and happiness flows through us (from the inside out) into the world.
As Rupert Spira puts it:
“Before this understanding, I used the world in service of my happiness. Afterwards, I use my happiness in service of the world.”
Or in the (paraphrased) words of a nondual carpenter more than 2,000 years ago:
“Seek first the kingdom, and everything else will be added”.
So, a question to think about then:
What kind of difference could it make in your life and relationships if your state of consciousness became your #1 priority?
3.) Clarity Pages
An exercise I find helpful when trying to solve a problem or bring a new idea into the world is Julia Cameron’s “Morning Pages” method.
I should preface this by saying that I don’t know why it works, just that it does work—at least for me.
Here’s a brief overview of the variation I use:
1.) Just before going to bed at night, pick a problem you’re trying to solve or an idea you’re trying to bring to reality.
2.) Phrase it in the form of a question, e.g.:
What would I need to do to solve X problem or launch Y idea?
3.) As soon as possible after waking up the next morning, grab an A4 notepad, and;
4.) Write unfiltered for three full pages on whatever the problem or idea is.
I emphasize unfiltered above because it’s the most important element. The aim is to simply empty the contents of your mind down onto the page.
As Seth Godin says:
“Good ideas come from bad ideas, but only if there are enough of them.”
It usually takes a while to get “warmed up”, but once the pen is flowing, I’m surprised by what I find myself writing. Often solutions or creative breakthroughs appear—things I would never have thought of otherwise.
What about you? Is there a problem or idea you could test this out on?
4.) A Book Worth Reading: Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth
This had been on my radar for a while, but part of me wanted to avoid it due to the gloomy subject matter.
However, I had no choice after reading this review from Iain McGilchrist:
“The most powerful and important book I have read in years. This book should be required reading not only for politicians, technocrats, teachers and all who help shape our world, but for every still-living soul in this terrifying age of the Machine.”
Inside, Kingsnorth puts into words an inkling I’ve had for a while now, but never been able to put my finger on. In essence, that there is an insidious force taking hold in society that has been accelerating in recent years. He calls it “The Machine” and does a masterful job of explaining the historical, psychological, economic, and cultural forces that fuel it.
A key feature of the machine is that it “uproots” us from the four key values that enrich and nourish our inner lives: (1.) People (community), (2.) Place (the natural world), (3.) Prayer (a connection with something bigger than ourselves), and (4.) Past (a connection to our ancestors and cultural heritage), and replaces them with its own.
Like a Dementor, its endgame is to suck the soul out of human life.
Our only chance of survival, Kingsnorth suggests, is to go in the opposite direction, and “re-root” ourselves to the 4 pillars noted above.
Although chilling in places, I agree with McGilchrist that this is a vitally important book, and due to the author’s humour and writing style, it’s actually quite an enjoyable and entertaining read.
5.) A Machine-Themed Podcast: Mo Gawdat on the Diary of a CEO
Linked with the above, this is both fascinating and terrifying.
Gawdat, a former Google executive, predicts AI is likely to bring about 2 major societal shifts in the near future: (1.) a period of dystopia, followed by (2.) a period of utopia.
If we survive the former and reach the latter, we may find ourselves in an era where our basic needs are automatically met by artificial intelligence, meaning the vast majority of us won’t have to work to earn a living.
That might sound good in theory, but we really have to ask if we are ready for that kind of shift.
For the vast majority of us, the busyness of work provides a kind of “existential shelter” from life’s biggest and most daunting questions.
So if you suddenly rip that away, we may find ourselves in a collective existential crisis—which could cause all kinds of problems in society.
In such a time, spirituality and a meaning-centred life no longer are a luxury, but a necessity.
A question worth pondering then:
“If you didn’t have to work, how would you spend the majority of your time?”
Personally, I’d probably write books and the occasional newsletter while walking the world’s great trails. Ideally in a nomadic tribe of extended family and close friends. (One can dream 
.)
What about you? How would you spend your time? If you have a minute, hit reply on this email and let me know.
6.) Co-Regulation Becomes Self Regulation
In an interview for our attachment summit, Dr Bonnie Badenoch shared a counterintuitive truth about the nature of “self regulation”.
Badenoch argues the term is actually a misnomer because our ability to self-regulate is heavily dependent on the co-regulation we experienced early in life.
To illustrate, take the example of two children.
The first has a secure attachment bond with their mother, which means that when they are in distress, the mother soothes and regulates the infant.
Through this process, the child learns their emotions are valid and deserve attention. This is then internalised in their nervous system, so that when they grow up, they have an internal working model that helps them to regulate their own emotions and get their basic needs met.
Now imagine a second child where the mother is absent, depressed, or in the clutches of a severe addiction.
When this child is upset, the mother can’t tend to the distress because of her own suffering, which means the child is left crying. If this happens enough, the infant starts to associate expressing negative emotion with being abandoned.
Therefore, as a survival strategy, this infant learns to ignore and suppress their emotions to prevent pushing their main source of security away.
Unfortunately, this also is internalised in the nervous system, and this child is likely to grow up out of touch with their emotions, have difficulties with self regulation, and may struggle to get their needs met in relationships.
The good news is that neuroplasticity happens throughout the lifespan and these internalised co-regulation patterns can be rewired over time with the right approach.
What follows is a brief overview of a couple of things I’ve found helpful in my own life.
(Note this is not science, just personal experience, so please take what follows with a pinch of salt.)
The first is to consistently bring warm and nourishing relationships (and specific moments within them) to mind.
On my morning commute, I’ll bring to mind a specific moment from a current or past relationship that was particularly warm and connected. Then I’ll let the associated emotions flow through my body.
At a biological level, these memories are essentially neural networks, and the more they are activated, the stronger their pathways become.
The second is to get very attuned to your own negative emotions.
When you experience some kind of emotional pain, try to locate it somewhere specific in your body.
Then, send as much love and warmth to that part of you as you can muster.
Sort of like a caring mother would to soothe her distressed child.
By doing so, your system gradually learns that its emotions are valid and worthy of attention.
The more consistently I engage in these practices, the more connected and whole I feel inside, and the better life seems to flow.
(See the clip with Bonnie here.)
7.) Discovering Your Creator Zygote
For my upcoming book, I’ve been playing with the idea that each of us have a “creator zygote”.
If you’re unfamiliar, the term “zygote” refers to the single cell you once were, which contained the “source code” or blueprint for the entire human being that you are today.
And it’s now found within each of the 30 trillion cells of your body.
This means each individual cell in your body—all of them roughly 20 times smaller than a grain of sand—contains the “knowledge” and creative intelligence required to create a whole human.
Similarly, although your creator zygote is also small in that it can usually be encapsulated in a single sentence, it contains the recipe for the entire “body” of creative work you have done, and will do during your lifetime.
When you have clarity on yours, you can consciously engineer it into your working life, and choose projects which will allow you to leverage it for maximum effect. This short excerpt (498 words) from my upcoming book contains a series of questions that can help you to clarify your own:
