Seasons Greetings, friends!

Just want to say I am incredibly grateful for those of you who read these missives week in and week out.

I’m also grateful to those of you who would rather set up a Gmail autofilter to skip your inbox vs. unsubscribing.

#vanitymetrics

All jokes aside, 2024 has been a transformative year for many of us (the world?). That includes this author.

Before I get to our last topic of the year, I also want to say thanks for your patience as this newsletter evolves. Admittedly I’m still trying to find the formula that “works” yet is still (a) valuable and (b) authentic.

If I could leave you with one thought as you head to 2025, it would be this:

Simplify Massively, Except Where You Can’t

Andrew Huberman, wunderkind everyone either loves to love or loves to hate has the following message:

Take your pain and “transmute it.”

Hubes, as we call him around the lab, is a very smart man (seriously, despite any eyerolls out there — I see you, Kim).

But this is perhaps the dumbest advice I’ve heard in a while.

I’m no therapist, but in my (deep) personal experience getting over ish, most of the time you can’t just take pain and “use it as fuel.”

Notable exceptions:

• Your son gets kidnapped and you start hit TV show America’s Most Wanted (true story: John Walsh)

• Your grandma dies of cancer and you commit your life to curing it.

Even for those people, this advice probably only works once or twice.

In general it takes pain and turns it into an even bigger monster.

Like,

• You grew up poor and feeling inadequate, so you work 100-hour weeks at investment banking to fill the hole.

• Or girls rejected you in school, so you become a womanizer once you’re in your prime.

But something is always missing.

More than that, you haven’t developed the ability to regulate.

You know what “winners” look like according to this definition?

• Hitler (yeah, I went there)

• Genghis Khan prolly felt tons of pain and “transmuted it”

• Did Michael Jordan sound like a happy guy in his autobiography, where he kept score of everyone who ever slighted him?

One thing I’ve learned after several years of concerted effort and study is that you don’t battle pain. You don’t turn it into fuel. You let it dissipate.

That’s what forgiveness, gratitude, and mindfulness are all about.

Jesus, Buddha, et al.

The presumption underlying Huberman’s point is that we NEED pain to serve as fuel.

This is the Tony Robbins view.

I reject that.

Yes, pain helps us recognize where we can improve our lives. But we can feel DRIVE even while we simultaneously lessen the sting of that pain.

Huberman is right about one thing: You can’t wallow forever.

But the most disgusting part of this clip is the idea along the lines of “If you’re hurting, you suck. You can’t hack it. You’re a loser.”

No, bud. You’re human.

Outro 

“Life doesn’t need a soundtrack. Life is a soundtrack.”
—Sri

“I’m Losing” by Summer-Winter seems rightfully on the nose this week.

Cheers

Find me at thewarriorpoet.com and on LinkedIn.

Free exploratory coaching call: book here.

Get unstuck, and crush it. Double period.