Endless books and authors followed, as we worked our way methodically down the list: The Count of Monte Cristo, Edgar Allan Poe, Robinson Crusoe, Ivanhoe, Gogol, The Last of the Mohicans, Dickens, Twain, Austen, Billy Budd…

By the time I was twelve, I was picking them out myself, and my brother Suman was sending me the books he had read in college: The Prince, Don Quixote, Candide, Le Morte D’Arthur, Beowulf, Thoreau, Sartre, Camus. Some left more of a mark than others. Brave New World founded my nascent moral philosophy and became the subject of my college admissions essay, in which I argued that happiness was not the point of life. Hamlet bore me a thousand times through the usual adolescent crises. “To His Coy Mistress” and other romantic poems led me and my friends on various joyful misadventures throughout high school—we often sneaked out at night to, for example, sing “American Pie” beneath the window of the captain of the cheerleading team. (Her father was a local minister and so, we reasoned, less likely to shoot.) After I was caught returning at dawn from one such late-night escapade, my worried mother thoroughly interrogated me regarding every drug teenagers take, never suspecting that the most intoxicating thing I’d experienced, by far, was the volume of romantic poetry she’d handed me the previous week. Books became my closest confidants, finely ground lenses providing new views of the world.

You gotta understand that the brain you have inside our head, the 2 million year-old brain is not designed to make you happy, it’s designed to help you survive. It’s an ancient survival software. This survival software is always looking for what’s wrong. So we live in a world where most of us are looking for what’s wrong, in the world where what’s wrong is always available, but so is what’s right! And if you dont take control of your focus, everything in your life will disappear. I cannot tell you the level of magnificence and joy and happiness you have when you dont stress out about all the stuff that you can’t control, that’s just a preference and just an expectation, but instead find a beauty in everything and use what life is offering you. You can teach your brain what to do, you can teach it to do anything. Believe me! So teach it to let go and find what is beautiful in every moment. There is nothing on earth that makes a better experience that that. And when you are in this beautiful state, it’s so much easier to solve problems than in a stressed out state. When people say « I make better decisions when I am stressed out » – bullshit! You just never tried being in a beautiful state and solving something to see how much faster and better it can be. Make the most important decision in your life to learn to be in the beautiful state as much and as long as possible. Every day. That’s my spiritual vision now. Everything else comes from it. Figure out your favorite flavor of suffering – is it stress, anxiety, is it worry, anger, pissed off, trying to please other people.. find what is your favorite style of suffering and end it! Cause if you end that, there is a level of freedom that no money will give you, no level of love will give you, no kind words, nothing. Suffering comes from 3 thought patterns : loss, less and never. The only antidote for these is appreciation. Try it and your brain starts to see how life can really be. It’s a more beautiful state that some people can ever dream of. Most people drink, smoke or do something to alter their state to get to a beautiful desired state. But I am telling you you can wire yourself to really be in that state. Its a simple daily practice: something happens, stop obsessing yourself, let go, appreciate what you have and what is beautiful, and keep moving forward! 

The good news is that I think people are tired of the hustle – they’re tired of doing it and tired of watching it. We’re hungry for people who have the courage to say, “I need help” or “I own that mistake” or “I’m not willing to define success simply by my title or income any longer.”

People connect more with those who have weaknesses. Every superhero has a weaknesses (Superman has kryptonite, for example). What makes these people more relatable? If they were perfect, would we care as much about them?

Most of us don’t trust perfect and that’s a good instinct.

In the research there’s a significant difference between perfectionism and healthy striving or striving for excellence. Perfectionism is the belief that if we do things perfectly and look perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgment, and shame. Perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield that we lug around, thinking it will protect us, when in fact it’s the thing that’s really preventing us from being seen.