Journey & Discover With Me: 4 Years of Mental Genesis
The answer? Probably more questions—but they’ll be good ones.
How can I transform my life through clarity, curiosity, and growth?
Starting a blog is no simple task. I mean, I suppose it is in that in the age of AI you could just ask Chat GPT or the cornucopia of other LLM (Large Language Model) money making engines to generate you a "blog post". But alas, they often read a bit shit, lacking emotional substance. Do I want post #1 to be giant side swipe at AI? Nah. AI has its uses. Mainly it consists of stopping me from sending an email that is poorly written. Instead, I want to start this blog with a personal life event of mine, something that is only 4 years young, my Mental Genesis.
Four years ago I was in a bad place, not the worst place I've been, but a bad one. I was lost and unable to see a way forward in either my relationship or my career. It was as though my options had shrivelled up and died from lack of water, desiccated. I don't remember how, but during COVID morning shifts at the job I was working I found myself wondering how I could make my life less boring and dull, I was just over it all. See, I've never really been one to fill my time with TV shows, often hyper-fixating on them only to forget they exist half way through the 5th season, never to be started again. They just did not hold the same appeal as my intellectual pursuits.
Randomly one day, I stumbled on a podcast by a guy named "Jim Kwik" about "using 100% of your brain" and I thought to myself "sounds like a snake oil salesman waving his hands around after taking LSD". Legitimately, I had no interest in the title or synopsis of the podcast. But, thankfully, I was too tired and bored to care. So, I listened anyway. I'm not going to claim I had some cosmic hand stroking my inner beast or anything like that, but I found myself intrigued. Here was this guy who suffered a brain injury as a kid, working as a CEO coach and versed deeply in neuroscience. "Bah, couldn't be me" I thought. He said he had a book, and I thought "fuck it, I'll read it in my lunch break, I've got nothing better to do and the conversation with my colleagues is hardly stimulating". So I bought it on my phone and used the kindle app to start reading. I have been finding new things to read or learn since.
I learned the ABCs of productivity and habit design - things you'd think you already knew. Surprise! You likely don't. Honestly, I was feeling dumb at how little I knew, reading was making me feel like an absolute novice. But it tickled me in a way that kept me reading books and listening to more podcasts. And so began my Mental Genesis. Every year, I look back on how many skills I have built and wounds I have healed as a result of all the incremental changes brought on by that single decision. It has become a narrative of change and growth that challenges me daily. It now challenges me to write this blog, and to share my knowledge and my hard earned victories. Again, things I never thought I wanted to do. My hope is that this blog will be that tipping point for you. I hope to be your "LSD snake oil guy".
Remember, all it takes is a bit of boredom and a yearning to find something more than what you have now. Whatever that looks like for you. You too can have your own Mental Genesis and it will look spectacularly dissimilar from mine. This is because although your behavioural patterns are not entirely new to the human experience, there is only one unique person who is you in this world and, fantastically, you are the only one who can change you. These words will come to mean different things to you at different parts of your journey. But, I challenge you: rock on, learn some stuff, I bet you can keep up 😉.
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