👁 Top Insights #126 - Anger & Clarity, Money & Meaning, and The Antidote to Hope & Fear
A powerful question to get clear on what matters most, creator-entrepreneur life, Andrew Tate goes to therapy, Peterson vs Dawkins, & a test to assess your network.
“Top Insights” is a monthly newsletter that shares mind-expanding podcasts, transformational frameworks, and insightful links that help you go beyond conventional development.
Welcome to the November 2024 edition of Top Insights 🦃
May the cool winds of change help you align with what matters most.
Anger & Clarity 😡 💎
What makes you angry about society? is a powerful question that can clarify what matters most to you.
When I think about this question, the following threads come to mind:
Capitalism & Consumerism
Capitalism has undoubtedly driven innovation and technological progress, offering many the opportunity to create wealth. However, it’s also a system that perpetuates patterns of hyper-consumerism, hyper-competitiveness, and hyper-individualism, which contribute to income inequality, environmental degradation, and mental health issues. I’m interested in post-capitalist economics and exploring ways to help build systems that address these concerns.
Political Polarization & Self-Righteousness
In today’s political landscape, engaging with politics without being pulled into a vortex of polarization has become increasingly challenging. I’ve observed many people in my circles—those who claim to be conscious and compassionate—falling into divisive and self-righteous dynamics in their efforts to assert their views. I’m curious: How can we more skillfully engage in difficult conversations while remaining open and empathetic to differing viewpoints?
Status Games & Social Masking
Status games often revolve around positioning oneself favorably within a social hierarchy to gain recognition, admiration, or higher standing. Social masking is one strategy in these games, where we conceal our true feelings to preserve or boost our status. Another is virtue signaling, where people express alignment with certain values or causes to appear virtuous or "good" within their desired group. This behavior may or may not reflect their true beliefs or actions, serving instead as a means to elevate social status or credibility. I don’t believe we can fully escape status games, but we can become more aware of these dynamics and strive to be people who genuinely care about being virtuous rather than simply being seen as virtuous.
Deathphobia
For most of history, death was an accepted reality, often kept at the forefront of people’s minds. In the modern world, however, death is vehemently denied and hidden from us. Our society’s reluctance to confront death is evident in how we sequester the elderly in nursing homes, in the resistance of leaders to relinquish power, and in the popularity of life-extension philosophies, such as Brian Johnson’s “Don’t Die” ethos. I believe this dominant death-phobic culture impoverishes our experience of life itself.
The Undervaluing of Interiority & Spiritual Poverty
These themes also intersect with a broader undervaluing of interiority, which could be seen as a form of spiritual poverty. Despite Western society’s impressive achievements in science and technology, we have largely failed to nurture wisdom, emotional maturity, and relational depth.
What makes you angry about society?
The Money & Meaning Dilemma 💸👨🎨
For most of my adult life, I’ve been privileged to be a creator-entrepreneur in various fields from rap, fitness, e-commerce, and content creation.
In 2021 when my e-commerce business was tanking my wife’s psychotherapy business was taking off.
We decided I would come on board to help with marketing, management, and business operations.
During that time I continued to write my newsletter and started a podcast.
Last year I also started coaching clients.
As much as I’ve wanted to make a sustainable living out of writing, podcasting & coaching that reality is still to materialize.
This year it became clear that we would need more money to cover our family’s growing expenses.
Reluctantly, for the first time in my adult life, I start applying to jobs.
It’s been interesting to watch the resistance but also overwhelming at times when I’ve become identified with triggered parts.
There is a part that fears doing meaningless work.
It fears that I will no longer have the timeEnergy to do the work I love and therefore will fail as a creator-entrepreneur.
And if I fail as a creator-entrepreneur I’m fundamentally inadequate (core wound).
I want to honor these feelings and also acknowledge that the right position could actually help me succeed in my aspirations.
I know a handful of creator-entrepreneurs who have worked in various jobs that served as stepping stones to their eventual success in entrepreneurial and creative ventures.
Still, thus far my job search has not been fruitful.
I’ve spoken to a recruiter who said that in today’s market applying for jobs is not enough.
You're far more likely to find a job through your network.
So, if you're reading this and know of any positions that could be a good fit for me, please do reach out.
Some of my skills & strengths include:
Leadership & interpersonal communication
Marketing & copywriting
Project management
Strategic thinking
Coaching & consulting
Public speaking
Interviewing & hiring
Community & relationship building
Self-directed & organized
Fluent in Russian
I’m sharing this less with the expectation that I will get a lead and more in the hope of building solidarity through our shared challenges.
Often when I share personal stories in this newsletter I worry that they won’t be useful to others.
However, I’ve learned to counteract that voice by recognizing that our lived experience is the only thing that AI can’t mimic.
The question of how to bridge money & meaning is one we all must grapple with but I know it’s particularly salient for those navigating post-conventional stages of development.
There is no generic ready-made answer, only a wild and winding path toward self-discovery.
The podcast clip below from my conversation with Tom Morgan is an interesting exploration of the money-and-meaning dilemma.
The Antidote to Hope & Fear 🧪 🤞😱
If you move in similar spaces to me then you know as a collective we often focus on actualizing potential.
This dynamic is well encapsulated in Charles Eisenstein’s popular phrase “How do we create the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible?”
A vision of hope can be a powerful catalyst for driving change yet it can also make us miss the truth, goodness, and beauty that is already here.
Not to mention that whenever hope emerges, fear is never far behind.
Gratitude is the antidote to the hope & fear paradigm (that so many of us operate from) because instead of seeking something different it embraces what is.
As fundamental as this practice may be when was the last time you wrote out a list of all the aspects of your life that you are grateful for?
I know it’s been a while for me.
So here I want to name everything that is currently good in my life:
All my loved ones are healthy
I get to be a father to two beautiful, funny, and vibrant boys
I get to be a husband to a powerhouse of a woman
Two sets of supportive and caring grandparents who are eager to help with the kids
Two Sangha’s that support my meditation practice
Despite my disability, I’m healthy and feel energetic on most days
A beautiful home in a beautiful neighborhood
A deep sense of meaning that I feel on most days
An abundance of books, podcasts, and interesting people to engage with
Sipping this jasmine green tea while writing this newsletter
With that said I invite you to take a sip of gratitude and wash it down with this clip of everyone’s favorite elder - Stephen Jenkinson speaking about why hope is hopeless.
Elevating Consciousness Podcast 🎙
In case you missed it here is the podcast episode I released last month.
Discover Radical Freedom Through Searchless Responsiveness with Ari Nielsen - Ari Nielsen is a practitioner with an eclectic background that spans Reichian Breathwork, Cybernetics, Unschooling, Dzogchen & Improv. He spent over a decade living in the heart of the community surrounding the prime representative of California New Age spirituality of the 1970s, Adi Da. He also edited the collected works of Bruce Di, Marsico, an existential therapist whose philosophy can be summed up as “Be Happy, and Do What you Want.” Currently, he writes a publication on Substack that elucidates a radical liberating orientation to life which he calls “Searchless Responsiveness. In this episode, we explore Ari’s experience living in Adi Da’s community, the guru model of spirituality, the option method for happiness, self & identity, unconventional approaches to parenting and so much more.
Insightful Links 🔗
Andrew Tate goes to therapy - Andrew Tate is the poster child for toxic masculinity and a firm disbeliever in therapy. Nonetheless, he agreed to sit down with therapist David Sutcliffe for a therapy session. What unfolds is a masterclass both in rationalization and loving presence. Tate unceasingly uses rationalization - a defense strategy used to avoid feeling emotions. Most of us use rationalization at least periodically but it’s fascinating to see how pronounced this defense strategy is in Tate’s psyche. There were moments where Tate seemed to open for a second before retreating back into the shell of rationalization. Sutcliffe exhibited mastery as a therapist by holding Tate in loving presence despite his narcissistic maneuvering. It’s important to remember that this was recorded so we can imagine Tate may have been able to let his guard down more if it was a private session.
Jordan Peterson Vs Richard Dawkins (Pt.2) - Two intellectual giants Peterson & Dawkins meet for a second conversation, mediated by Alex O’ Connor. While they still mostly miss each other there was more consilience than their first conversation. You can follow it up with Cadell Last’s dialectic analysis of the conversation.
Assess Your Network Test - This short test helps you assess your network and shows you ways how you can strengthen it. Shout out to
for sharing this.
Resonant Read 📕
World-class philosopher of mind and past Elevating Consciousness guest Bernardo Kastrup has just released his latest book - Analytic Idealism in a Nutshell.
I’m yet to read it but I’m looking forward to it because, unlike the typical 400-page tomes of philosophical filler, Bernardo’s work is always articulate and straight to the point.
You can get your copy here.
Quintessential Quote ✍️
“I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing”
- T.S. Eliot
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