“We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is to learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.”
— Aldous Huxley, Island
It was cold out, but none of us were cold.
I sat with five men in the mountains of Montana. As the sun set, the fire in the center cast dancing light on our faces. Reclined against fallen trees in a tight circle, we ate mushrooms and fish we’d found under trees and along streams. The whole crew burst into laughter yet again, and one of the guides passed around a fresh batch of pine needle tea.
Bathed in warmth, I took off a layer and glanced skyward through an opening in the trees. The stars shone like crystals on black velvet, and the show—the biggest meteor shower of the year—was starting.
In that moment, there was nothing to do. Nothing to improve. Nothing to fix.
It was perfect.
***
The older I get, the more I think that self-help can be a trap. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. I say this after ~20 years of writing self-help and a lifetime of consuming it.
Spend enough time in the world of “improvement,” and you’ll notice something strange: The people most obsessed with self-help are often the least helped by it. Behind the smiles and motivational quotes, behind closed doors and after a drink or two, the truth is that they’re not able to outsmart their worries.
On one hand, perhaps this unhappiness is precisely what lands one in self-development in the first place, right? I long assumed this about myself, and it’s partially true.
On the other hand, what if self-help itself is actually creating or amplifying unhappiness?
Modern self-help contains an in-built flaw:
To continually improve yourself, you must continually locate the ways you are broken.
Fortunately, there are a few perspective shifts that make all the difference. It took me embarrassingly long to figure them out.
To get started, let’s take a fresh look at an old concept.
MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS?
“I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”
― Abraham Maslow
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs has captured the minds of hundreds of millions. It offers simplicity in a terrifyingly complex world.
Abraham Maslow’s “A Theory of Human Motivation” (1943) contains five levels, which are typically presented like the below pyramid. This one is pulled from the Wikipedia entry on the subject:
We’ve all seen it. Clear as day, you can see the goal post at the top: self-actualization.
LFG! It’s time to journal and 80/20 myself! Pass me a shaman and some modafinil.
That’s the mission. That’s the point.
Right?
But hold on. A critical footnote got lost in the shuffle. In his later writings, especially notes compiled in The Farther Reaches of Human Nature (1971), Maslow added a sixth level above self-actualization:
Self-transcendence.
That update never quite made it out of the crib. The consultants are to blame, but that comes later.
Self-transcendence means going beyond the self—seeking connection with something greater, such as service to others, nature, art, or the divine. Why is it important? Well, for one thing, as Tony Robbins put it at an event long ago: “‘I, I, I, me, me, me’ gets to be a really fucking boring song.”
But it’s not just a boring song; it’s dangerous to your health.
DON’T BE A SOMO
“The man who renounces himself, comes to himself.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Self-help is dangerous precisely because it easily becomes self-fixation.
A focus on improving the self usually first requires finding problems with the self. This is quite the pickle. In a society that rewards problem-solving, you can end up hallucinating or exaggerating unease in order to fix it. This leaves you always in the red, always one step behind. Imagine a dog chasing its tail that has committed to being unhappy until it catches the tail… but it’s always just a few inches short. Still, it whirls around and around, “doing the work.” Perfection always recedes by one more book, one more seminar, one more habit tracker.
Put in more colorful terms, misdirected self-help turns you into a self-obsessed masturbatory ouroboros (SOMO).
To remind me of the SOMO risk, I have this sticker on my laptop:
Now, to be clear, I still love self-help. Ain’t no way Timmy can give up the sauce. There’s a place for it.
From The Bible to Seneca, and from Ben Franklin to Stephen Covey and far beyond, there’s a lot of valuable advice worth taking. I used to mainline it all—no time to waste!—and jump straight into action. This did some good, but there was a lot of collateral damage.
Why?
Because there are at least three “tectonic plates of self-help” that I couldn’t see for decades, and they dictate how much net-positive or net-negative comes from all the striving. Before you sprint, you want to calibrate your direction.
THE THREE TECTONIC PLATES OF SELF-HELP
“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”
— Harrington Emerson
In the last few years, my life has become much more of a joy than a grind, and that’s because I’ve focused on three tectonic plates.
Let’s take a close look at each.
1. Intention
Individual or Social?
Americans, in particular, worship at the altar of the rugged individualist. There are clear upsides to this. But steeped in a culture—offline and especially online—that puts the self on a pedestal; we can take self-improvement to be an end unto itself: a better self.
But is it an end unto itself? Does it automatically produce good things? I now have my doubts.
Here’s one analogy I’ve drawn for myself.
Let’s pretend that life is the game of soccer. You can work on the mechanics of soccer by yourself. You can always get better at dribbling, shooting, and running drills as a solo practitioner. You can read dozens of books, study tape, and earn a PhD in the physics of ball flight. You can post videos of stunning shots on YouTube and get showered by emojis.
But none of this is actually playing the game of soccer.
You can spend your whole life preparing for, instead of playing, the game of life.
But why would anyone, including yours truly, succumb to this?
Subconsciously, it spares you from the messiest but most rewarding game of all: human interaction. Perhaps people hurt or traumatized you long ago. You might also justify the endless polishing, as I did, with some version of “Once I’ve perfected myself, then I’ll be ready for relationships.” But here’s the rub: that practice is exactly endless. You can always get better at dribbling and penalty kicks.
Digging further, focusing on improving the self is often in service of trying to control the world, especially if things were unpredictable or unstable when growing up. Banish emotion, live by spreadsheets, and all can be well. All can be controlled, or so the illusion goes. But as soon as you’re interacting with—let alone depending on—other people, control as a construct goes out the window. And so we consciously or subconsciously avoid the messiness. This is also one of the reasons why a lot of optimizing achiever folks have a hard time in intimate relationships.
So how do I think about “self-help” now, having realized all of the above?
It is refreshingly simple: the goal is to build and improve my relationships. The sooner you get on the real field with real players, the sooner you can get to playing soccer and engaging with life. No more auto-fellating, even with the best of intentions. We’ve evolved over millions of years to be deeply social creatures, and the more you dodge that IN REAL PHYSICAL LIFE, the more you will suffer. This is why solitary confinement in prisons is often considered cruel and unusual punishment… and yet we do it to ourselves all the time.
There are a few questions that help corral this tectonic plate of intention:
- How does any given “self-help” help me in my relationships, and how can I apply it with other people today or this week?
- How can I take the ship out of the harbor and test it where it counts?
2. Audience
Do you have an audience for your self-development? If so, be careful.
Nary a minute can be spent on social media without bumping into a CAPS-rich “HOW X CHANGED MY LIFE” or a photo carousel of an ayahuasca retreat. If only Costa Rica got a dime for every bikini-clad healer under a waterfall!
Welcome to the theater of performative self-help. I won’t belabor this, as we’ve all seen it, but I suggest reading about the insidious creep of audience capture here, and don’t forge ahead in the fame game before reading 11 reasons not to become famous. It’s hard to put the genie back in the bottle, so you should know what that genie will do to your life.
But the truth is that most of us aren’t extreme examples of this. But even minor tendencies in this direction can do extreme damage over time.
Below are a few questions that I’ve found helpful for nudging this particular tectonic plate in the right direction:
- If you couldn’t tell a soul about “the work” you’re doing, would you still do it? If not, you’re not developing yourself; you’re curating yourself.
- How has sharing your personal development created tradeoffs?
- If you had to take down 20% of your most popular posts, which would you take down and why?
- Are you describing strong catalysts (psychedelics, The Hoffman Process, you name it) instead of doing the post-session integration that makes them truly valuable?
- Have you become more robust or more fragile by offering your inner workings up to public vote?
- Has your social presence made you more or less of the person you want to be? How would the you of three or five years ago feel about your last year of posts? What about the you of 10 years from now?
3. Assumption
What are the fundamental assumptions behind your doing “the work”?
Let’s begin with a Buddhist parable that I first heard from the incredible Jack Kornfield.
The old Master points to a big boulder and asks a disciple, “See that large rock over there?”
“Yes,” says the disciple.
“Do you think it’s heavy?” continues the Master.
“Yes, it’s very heavy!” replies the student.
“Only if you pick it up,” smiles the Master.
Once again, the fundamental assumption behind self-help is often this: Something is not OK. Something is wrong. Something is not enough. Something needs fixing. If I can’t find it, I’ll create it.
We’ve established this. But there is a follow-on assumption that matters a lot.
If I fix the things that aren’t OK, all will be well. If I improve myself enough, if I only work hard enough, I can finally eliminate my suffering.
I hate to inform you, but this doesn’t work. I’m also thrilled to inform you that this doesn’t work. You can stop picking up a lot of boulders.
There is one book that most opened my eyes to this reframe – Already Free: Buddhism Meets Psychotherapy on the Path of Liberation by Bruce Tift. It offers a terrifying but ultimately liberating realization: there is no perfect escape from suffering. It doesn’t exist. But there is a way to find your long-sought unclenching, and it lies in cultivating your skill of acceptance as much as that of improvement.
Now, I can hear the chorus: Has Tim gone soft? Given up the good fight? Is he telling everyone to chill after he himself red-lined and got the spoils? How convenient! And…
Hold on a second. I’m telling you—intelligent acceptance is high-leverage. It’s probably one of the highest forms of leverage. This is an approach that helps preserve your energy for where it really matters. My early forays into Stoicism and Seneca The Younger helped set the conditions for my biggest wins from 2004–2010. Still, I only learned a small fraction of what I needed.
So how do you cultivate your skill of acceptance without becoming complacent?
This is a big question and what I love about Bruce’s book. Compared to a strictly Western or purely Eastern book, he blends them and offers a surgical guide to using both action and acceptance. You don’t have to be a bull in a china shop or a cow in the rain; there is a middle path. That middle path is where all the gold is buried.
If the only tool you have is “self-improvement,” you’ll become a hammer looking for nails in a world that is 50% screws. I tried it. It can create the veneer of success, but it will leave your inner world in turmoil.
Suffice to say, the dual dance is the most joyful. Upgrade your toolkit with that in mind. Read Bruce’s book. If it doesn’t click, try Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha by Tara Brach, which had a large impact on my life a decade before I found Bruce’s book. In a sense, the writing of Seneca prepared me for Tara, which then prepared me for Bruce. So grab them all and thank me later.
If you want serenity, you need to be able to put the Serenity Prayer into practice. Seriously, I read it all the time.
MASLOW’S HAMBURGER OF NEEDS?
“The more one forgets himself—by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love—the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called ‘self-actualization’ is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.”
― Viktor E. Frankl
How can we easily keep ourselves on the right track?
As I remind myself these days: It’s the relationships, stupid.
For a nice simple visual, let’s revise Maslow’s pyramid with all of this in mind. This is easy, as Maslow never drew his model as a rigid pyramid!
He described “classes” of needs that were unfixed, overlapping, and that could reverse in order. And believe it or not, self-actualization was only ever for the “self-actualizing minority.” In the 1960s, his work was co-opted by consultants and corporate trainers who needed a progression to sell. True story.
Given all this, and after decades of trial and error, here’s where I’ve landed:
Maslow’s Hamburger of Needs.
Ahhh… what? Not to worry. It’s the same good ol’ Maslow ingredients, but I think of it as a hamburger:
For our purposes, the meat, the whole point of the hamburger, is that middle layer: relationships. That is the center of life. The heartbeat.
As luck would have it, when you improve the heartbeat, it also feeds everything else.
You’ll notice that the meat contains Abe’s most-important addendum—the sixth level of self-transcendence. Focusing on things bigger than yourself is a critical piece of the ultimate puzzle. Faith, nature, family, meditation, causes that outlive you, etc.—take your pick. But be careful. If you do it to inflate the ego or impress others, it’s self-obsession again, not self-transcendence. If you need credit, it doesn’t count.
Of course, it should go without saying, but the top and bottom layers matter a lot. A hamburger is a giant mess without the bun. Friends will get sick of you crashing on their couch and eating their food.
But the bread and dressing layers exist to serve the middle. That’s the payload. Everything is in service of the payload. And the payload circulates benefits back to the edges, and then the cycle repeats. Even if you think this is oversimplified claptrap, temporarily assuming it’s true will help you.
What if nearly everything you focused on—calendar, habits, goals—aimed to improve your relational life somehow? What if you took this as a challenge for even a week? Your lens on the world changes dramatically.
You say yes differently.
You say no more clearly.
Your to-do list for life slowly transforms.
What if all that you focused on, all that you do, had to improve that middle layer in some fashion?
It’s a damn hard question if you’ve been on the self-help train for a while. I get it.
So let’s try something easier: What if it only changed how you approach your to-do list? Try hamburger-first each day for 1–2 weeks and tell me what happens. Add and do the things that improve your relational life FIRST. Nothing on the list? Create something. It could be as simple as cooking dinner for your spouse, complimenting at least three people a day for a week, or introducing yourself to the barista you see every morning. Getting started is how you get grooving.
ARE YOU DOING SELF-HELP, OR IS SELF-HELP DOING YOU?
For friendship makes prosperity more shining and lessens adversity by dividing and sharing it.
— Marcus Tullius Cicero
In his Moral Letters to Lucilius, Seneca the Younger famously wrote that “These individuals [who put money at the center of life] have riches just as we say that we ‘have a fever,’ when really the fever has us.”
What if self-help is similar?
Obsessing over the self never provides peace. It cannot make you whole, as you aren’t the whole. Becoming whole starts by putting down the rock you didn’t even know you were carrying.
Because at the end of the day—and at the end of a Montana night—the point was never yourself.
It was never the pyramid.
It was never the optimization.
It was the people around the fire.
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The Hamburger of Needs needs to become a Tee shirt, or at the very least a coffee cup.
Thank you
In my experience, the best self-help is to find, as soon as possible, a partner who is much more emotionally intelligent than you are! Heaven has no beauty like a woman (in my case) who understands and cares for your inner well being (being fit and cute is a nice bonus ;))
Why after more than 10 years would this be the post that draws me out of my inbox, over to your blog, and provide any sort of comment and feedback for one of my favorite voices? Because this was vulnerable, it was brave, and it’s true. I’ve been coming to the same truth over the past three years, developing awareness around my intentions with self-improvement leaning performative, vs. becoming a better contributor in my relationships, and to the human collective.
Tim, keep being your best you… the particles and waves you create have value. Someday, I hope you’ll share that letter Liz invited you to write. There’s a softer side of your long-time audience that is patiently waiting for your participation.
Tim this makes complete sense. But essentially you are doing the same thing by writing this: over analysis. Being a new father, it became glaringly obvious to me that this is the most rewarding (and self transcendent thing) one can do, even above business (coming from an obsessed founder). When you live to serve your family, and watch that beautiful flower bloom – that services everything you just outlined above. If people would stop overthinking everything, and just do what God naturally designed, they’d be happy (family) yet driven (inspired to work hard to provide). It’s a self containing system that already works and requires almost no analysis. The missing piece (as it appears to me) is that you (and many others) still haven’t found God. When you do, it’ll all click. And trust me, after enough searching (and Ayahuasca), he will show himself – but remember it could be on your deathbed.
You may want to check out Brian D. Ridgway. He does some fantastic work on helping people unclench, digest their old emotions and liberate themselves from fear, anger and sadness. Worth a look, Tim.
I say this with the utmost respect as a long-time follower: I’m very proud of you for this post. I’ve wondered for a long time why many of the likes of you, Huberman and others haven’t built marriages or long (decades-long) term relationships or had children. I remember one Podcast guest hammering you about it (Chris Sacca, maybe?). This post seems like real growth. Pura Vida.
I agree wholeheartedly and I just finished a book on relationships and personal growth and how each reinforces the other. Would love to share it with you.
Only someone that has devoted so much to practicing self-help and teaching others how to could make this strong case for the self-help trap. Thank you Tim!
I’m ready to put down my hammer now!
Thank you, Tim.
Your work has been a guiding light for me since I was 21 and 4 Hour Body had just been published.
This post hits me in the same life-altering way that book did.
What an arc! What a journey.
I’ve been working in the mental health field for the last five years, it definitely taught me the key to mental health is in not ‘self optimising’ , and this quote (GK Chesterton) sums up the actual route to a healthy life.
‘The mistake of all that medical talk lies in the very fact that it connects the idea of health with the idea of care. What has health to do with care? Health has to do with carelessness. In special and abnormal cases it is necessary to have care. When we are peculiarly unhealthy it may be necessary to be careful in order to be healthy. But even then we are only trying to be healthy in order to be careless. If we are doctors we are speaking to exceptionally sick men, and they ought to be told to be careful. But when we are sociologists we are addressing the normal man, we are addressing humanity. And humanity ought to be told to be recklessness itself. For all the fundamental functions of a healthy man ought emphatically to be performed with pleasure and for pleasure; they emphatically ought not to be performed with precaution or for precaution. A man ought to eat because he has a good appetite to satisfy, and emphatically not because he has a body to sustain. A man ought to take exercise not because he is too fat, but because he loves foils or horses or high mountains, and loves them for their own sake…The food will really renovate his tissues as long as he is not thinking about his tissues. The exercise will really get him into training so long as he is thinking about something else.’
Thank you for once again opening your brain (and more recently since your revelations…your heart ) with us.
The burger idea is fun and another less goal focused way is to just see all of those states as just places on a wheel where there is no attempt to get anywhere, but just being with whatever experience is happening and the joy or terror that comes with it…pure presence but not even making it a goal.
Even David Hawkins encouraged folks to go pet a dog, watch a show or go on a walk as a way to ease overwhelm when feeling our feelings. I think for those of us who had more intense childhood trauma that wasn’t attended to we’re constantly trying to solve for it so the idea of distracting away feels like the opposite of what we should or even can do, but it does feel like the medicine that can make a life worth living.
Tim never missed. I’ve been listening to your podcasts for over a decade and they’ve guided me through tough times and good times – there’s always an episode for a particular moment, season, challenge or opportunity. Thank you Tim.
Strangely enough, this is similar place to where I’ve landed in the past few years and a it’s a beautiful place to live in. We’ll never get the chance to meet but like millions of others, I’ll be forever grateful for your work.
“The point … was the people around the fire.”
This post is possibly one of best I’ve ever read. I wish I had written it.
I am 66, and I got my introduction to personal development starting with 12-step recovery in the late ‘80s, quickly becoming an enthusiastic self-help consumer (addict?), and a follower of yours since the publication of the 4HWW. I have been a counselor, small business entrepreneur, and certified professional coach. Holy shit.
I used to confess perplexedly, “I’m in the helping professions, but I don’t like people very much.”
Over time I’ve learned that while I don’t like everyone, the people I do like, I like very deeply.
Thanks, Tim, for pointing out so kindly and elegantly that the true payload of all this self improvement is in the relationships and community — even though they are messy to be sure and strain us to our limits sometimes.
I am hopeful that by refocusing on what truly matters instead of my own navel, I can enjoy people more, be of greater service, and have more fun.
I’ll have my Hamburger with a side of forgiveness and a hefty slice of humble pie, thank you.
And thank YOU, Tim. Keep it coming.
Preston
Thanks Tim. Your work has had a big impact on me and this is just what I needed right now. What can I do today to improve relationships? For me it’s to be unfairly generous, especially with my kids and my inner kids.
This is quite an eye opener. However, I think self-help is good as long as one truly finds a necessary need to get better at a particular critical juncture and arena of one’s life. Example given, a man discovers that his communication skill is bad. As such, He gets books that teaches practical methodology on how to improve communication skills. This in itself is not an obsession with self-help. Rather a genuine need for help in a place he considers himself weak.
Isn’t it better to keep seeking help and better on our weakness rather than accept it as destiny?
Regardless, your point is taken.
Nice take. Fresh eyes looking into an old abyss.
I think you’d enjoy a conversation with Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman and his book Transcendence… bringing the real work for Maslow to life. He would like the burger image and I think you’d like his sailboat metaphor… as Maslow never mentioned a pyramid.
Thanks for this article!
This really puts you right on track for R Johnson’s Jungian translation of the Fisher King. I think in that seminar (audio on Spotify or in the book “Him”) Johnson quotes Jung that every man is “either 18 or 40”, meaning life stages of feeling a need to achieve versus the realization that life really doesn’t need to be so complicated. It translates to pretty much all flavors of pursuit.
Once found myself in a place where ‘productivity hacks’ and ‘self help’ became the end rather than the means. Lifting boulders that were never ‘the end’ got pretty exhausting. With some help from a professional my focus now is on ‘what I need’ be that physical, relational, or spiritual. Living from the inside out is liberating.
Thanks Tim
Excellent post, thank you!
And then after focusing on relationships with others, you realize that the most important relationship is the one that you have with yourself. And then after you do that, you realize that the most important relationship is the one that you have with God…
People have been doing this dance for thousands of years. Excellent post Tim!
Hey Tim,
This is really refreshing, especially coming from you. 15 years of twelve-step recovery in perfect tandem with a life of “optimization” has made me keenly aware of the incompatibility of “self-actualization” and this other revered thing of service, and shedding self-centeredness. Compounded by a career in sales (residential real estate, to boot), I’ve cycled in and out of trying to “take the world by storm” and retreating into spiritual principles.
As I’ve gotten older, this thing you’re circling has become not only more attractive, but more possible. I think some (maybe all) of us have to go through the grind/fix/perfect phase in order to get sufficiently tired of ourselves and begin to lean into this. I suspect we’re more valuable in our relationships to others now as a result of the experience though. Perspective is hard earned. Glad to read this from one of my early mentors. Helps to balance the pervasive counter-argument. Consider writing this book, Tim.
What is this ‘self’ we’re all trying to help?
Most self-help works beautifully for one thing: Keeping one locked inside the identity built to survive childhood, and cultural expectations.
Does it make sense to you that we’re meant to be born, struggle all our lives to “be better” and then die?
It’s hiding in plain sight.
Recommend a great book for understanding the self help scam:
Ask Anicca: Humanity’s Arrested Development and the Quest to Grow Up
Thanks Tim. This is one of the most important posts of yours that I’ve read. Beautifully said. Thanks for your wisdom.
I love that you can admit you have changed. Many people who sell a particular message won’t stray from that message out of fear to their brand/message/livelihood. Affirming – reason for improving is to have more joy and deeper relationships. I’ll offer the 3 practices that are currently sustaining me – gratitude, grief, and forgiveness – all held/practiced in a connection with SOUL (Spirit of Unconditional Love – thanks Liz Gilbert)
Tim – thank you. This is SO refreshing.
Such an Impactful reframe from someone who’s done SO much in this realm (and so many others).
I’ve listened to, read and followed your work for so many years, and I gotta say, your “meta”-level thinking never ceases to amaze and inspire….and shift my perspectives.
This post is yet another one that really hit home, sending ripples. I’m sharing widely.
As scientist, artist, people person, community leader and rather amateur dabbler in self-help, I’m left with a sort of feeling liberation from the pressures of my perfectionism and relentless self-flagellation in the name of improvement. I never really thought of the ongoing, neverending self-work as self-perpetuating (though I am so tired of all the bellybutton gazers in these spaces who never seem to escape their own orbit).
Anyway, I don’t know if you read these but just…thanks. Thanks again for another brilliant, important, impactful piece.
A piece for inner peace, as it were.
This post reminds me of what most writers say about their writing: once you get the first draft written, you move forward by taking things away, not adding more stuff. As you go through life, you improve your life by taking things the world throws at you out of your life. Until you get to my age (70). By that time you realize what Tim has said in this piece: The only thing that really matters is your relationships with those you love. Good job, Tim. You are not far from the Kingdom.
Amen.🙏👌
Stop Fixing Yourself by one of your favorite authors – Anthony DeMello
I feel like this is confirmation for me. I have achieved a lot of what I set out to do in life, and none of it is worth it if you have no one to share it with. This is how I plan to live life moving forward, with relationships at the centre of everything. Thanks, Tim, I seriously loved this.
If anyone in Scotland / the UK is open to making new friends, please get in touch. My Instagram is @beckymcaulayy
Thanks Tim!
I’ve always admired your ability to see see the trees and the forrest.
Indeed, both self-help and religious dogma are traps. For the same reason.
Life is truly a game. And the focal point of our awareness needs only to be: am I playing my cards right? There is nothing wrong with us. Only… we didn’t know what game we were playing until the ancient Book of Life — which was hidden in plain sight — was rediscovered.
And because you’re a public figure Tim, I know your birthday; and so I know you are born to play the 8 of Clubs with a Jack of Spades personality. That’s your game to play. Just as we each have our own game to play in this 52! model of reality. For example, my Birth Card is the 9 of Hearts. And I play that through the lens of my 7 of Clubs personality.
Again, the only question to ask ourselves is… am I playing my cards right? That’s what it’s all about.
🙂
So many good points, especially the part about how our striving has changed as we’ve gotten an audience (don’t we all, now?). Maslow himself said only one percent of people reach self-actualization because they are too busy fulfilling other needs (which of course, we need others to do). The self-help industry takes advantage of what he describes as our inclination to grow and evolve, our “growth needs” (admitted self-help author here too). I doubt Maslow would categorize defying the aging process or becoming a CEO as self-actualization. I agree, actualizing through relationships is the meaning-making of life. But I also think Maslow might add living in accordance with our values and growing in a direction that feel authentic and lets us exist with integrity. The question isn’t how can we change/be better, but how can we be more fully ourselves so that we can transcend to greater connection and contribute to a better world. Thanks for attending my stream of consciousness….
This was perfect and exactly what I needed right now. Thank you, Tim🙏
Dang! This really, really (really) makes me think and you kinda capture it perfectly and answer the question I have asked about some people … “that guy doesn’t go to church, doesn’t read self-help books, doesn’t think about exercise and diet .. and he seems so damn happy all the time and people love him and he loves life. He must be secretly doing self help stuff.”
This reminds me of the poem by Portia Nelson. I would add a line at the end “I make friends”
AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN FIVE CHAPTERS
I
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost … I am hopeless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
II
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I’m in the same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
III
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in … it’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
IV
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
V
I walk down another street.
Portia Nelson
The hamburger is a good visual.
so happy to see the world moving towards to the same direction of more simplicity and groundedness.
reminds me of the beautiful paragraph from the book presence process by michael brown.
“Another key insight that came to me was that my intent to heal myself – to “get rid of my discomfort” – was misguided. Perhaps this was why I hadn’t succeeded despite my best efforts. In due course, I dropped my use of the word “heal” because of its connotation that something was wrong and had to be fixed. Instead, I began using the word “integrate,” which to me meant there was a part of my experience that was unconscious – a part of my experience that I resisted, controlled, and sedated – which was asking to be incorporated into the whole. Whereas healing felt like I was excluding something from my experience, integration felt like I was embracing everything I experienced.”
Thank you. This is very helpful!
Timmy, dude – you need kids.
All this BS – it’s for people who don’t have kids.
Don’t believe me – who am I anyway – but maybe ask some folks with kids.
When you figure it out, pass it on to Hubermann et al.
Thank you for sharing your insights. Aligns with what Arthur Brooks maintains. We have enough self-absorbed individuals in the name of longevity.
Was about to share this with others and then noticed the huge hairy snake nuts. lol
“Trouble, we have known trouble
In our struggle just to get by
Many times the burden’s been heavy
Still we carried on side by side
And when we’re gone, long gone
The only thing that will have mattered
Is the love that we shared
And the way that we cared
When we’re gone, long gone
And when we’re walking together in glory
Hand in hand through eternity
It’s the love that will be remembered
Not wealth, not poverty
And when we’re gone, long gone
The only thing that will have mattered
Is the love that we’ve shared
And the way that we cared
When we’re gone, long gone”. – Kieran Kane, Jamie O’hara (my favorite version is on Trio II album with Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris 😊)
For as long as I can remember, you’ve shared your learning, given us access to great ideas from amazing people, colorful stories, and paths to learn more about ourselves. This is a lovely essay. But I think you’ve always been the guy around the fire.
Thank you for sharing your questions always.
It’s true that relationships are the most important thing but the problem this is one of those things which are not really in our control. It’s like saying height is the most important thing to get many dates, but I can’t control that
As I walk, I integrate each step; as each step is my life.
“Traveler, your footprints
are the only road, nothing else.
Traveler, there is no road;
you make your own path as you walk.
As you walk, you make your own road,
and when you look back
you see the path
you will never travel again.
Traveler, there is no road;
only a ship’s wake on the sea.”
-Antonio Machado
Parenting teaches you this every day. Life is not meant to be about you. Life was never about you.
It is amazing to read this piece as a part of your inner, huge evolution, Tim! I love the concept of SOMO (and learned a new word with ouroboros) and it reminded me of this iconic image on „ego masturbation“ (can be found on 9GAG etc.).
It great to grow with you and learn from you, Tim!
I’ve been a follower of yours for a while. You’re podcast and the 4-Hour Workweek have been really influential to me. So also have your maturing thoughts around self-help. I’ve been on this journey with you, and I’m grateful for your reflections
a good read on Pi Day, also known as my BDAY. 3 score and 14. Wow, how did it happen?
Thx
Tim, that ending was……..superb.
Chef’s Kiss, Outstanding.
~Continued, Massive Respect.
~E
Thank you for this. Really helped to reflect on what I was actually doing and whether if it’s really helping me or not.