You are living below your potential.

First off, that’s not a personal attack.

And if you got offended by some words on a screen — you have my permission to click off.

But the fact is that we all are.

We all go through life barely scratching the surface of our capabilities.

And most of us die never seeing who or what we could have been.

Not because we’re lazy or undisciplined, but because our minds just won’t let us see it.

Because we are all in a way — hiding our own potentials from ourselves.

This was something that hit me a couple of days ago.

For a couple of days my mind had been running on overdrive.

I was so stressed that I couldn’t see straight, I questioned what I was doing with my life and if I should even bother to write this letter.

And so I took a walk to clear my mind.

I walked around and tried to enjoy the scenery, but I felt completely stuck inside my head. But as I let my eyes float across the tree lines, an idea started to take shape.

I’d always felt like I was something inside my head, as something looking out at the world from behind my eyes. But wasn’t I inside my head right now?

The sights, the sounds, the thoughts and emotions, they were all part of the world inside my mind.

That’s when it hit me.

The world I saw around me was just my mind’s interpretation of reality.

Small details of the forest I hadn’t noticed before suddenly became vivid and clear. My thoughts continued to go on, but I didn’t get sucked into them. I started noticing new ideas and actually appreciating the sights around me.

And a realization opened up to me.

How much of the world was I not seeing because of my mind? 

How many possibilities, ideas and experiences had I missed because I was blind to them?

How much of my potential had I wasted because I couldn’t see it?

Now I’m asking you that same question.

And if you don’t have a good answer, let me take you through a journey until you do.

Because if you want more out of life than just going on — there’s nothing that’s more important.

How Your Mind Creates Your Reality

You are stuck in a narrow piece of reality.

Even if you believe it or not.

The things you see as possible, the ideas you have and the quality of the life you lead is only to the extent of what your mind allows.

Because what you’re actually capable of is so far outside your reality it doesn’t even register as a possibility.

You really don’t have the slightest idea of your potential, of how amazing life can truly be.

And that is exactly why you’re stuck where you are.

If you talk to most people, you find that they see reality as something they can just manipulate to their will.

In other words, that you can improve yourself.

But if you dig a bit deeper, you’ll find that not only is it not working, but it has never worked.

Because the successful person doesn’t know why he’s successful. And the so called ”failure” doesn’t know why he isn’t.

And while the person ahead tells the one behind to just pick himself up, the person behind finds himself in the obvious predicament of being the one who is going to pick himself up the ground.

Which just doesn’t work.

They don’t see that they’re living in two different realities.

This is the key insight that I had.

Because the reality you can manipulate isn’t something objective and external — but something completely subjective and internal.

Reality isn’t filled with the same possibilities and opportunities for everyone, because everyone sees it differently.

What you see as reality is just your mind’s interpretation of it. It’s not the whole thing, it’s only the tiny speck your mind has chosen to focus on.

And it determines your whole life:

• What you’re able to achieve

• The ideas you’re able to come up with

• The things in life you’re able to experience

Are all determined by what your mind allows in its interpreted reality.

And in this way — your mind is the limit of your potential.

Imagine a circle closing you off from your potential. The area inside that circle is your mind’s interpretations of reality and also the amount of your potential you have access to. It’s the scope of things you’re able to accomplish.

Think about how a colorblind person sees the world completely different from a person with regular vision. It’s not that the world itself is different, but the minds interpreting it are.

And the colorblind person is limited by the way he sees reality. He can’t become a great painter because his mind prevents from seeing the possibilities of colors.

Because he can only manipulate the reality he sees.

And in the same way, you can only manipulate the reality your mind creates. Because you can’t see anything beyond it.

As an example, a person who’s mind only sees a small part of reality, doesn’t see self improvement as a possibility.

And even though he may half heartedly try, it’s only to justify to himself that it can’t be done.

And if you’re reading this, you probably don’t share that sentiment. But consider this…

You probably don’t see flying as a possibility.

Even if you can entertain the thought of it, chances are that you won’t try to jump of a building.

You might jump of a staircase and conclude to yourself that it wasn’t possible and then go on with your life.

But in exactly the same way, a person whose reality doesn’t include the idea of self improvement, won’t fully commit to it. And he will unconsciously use his own failure to justify his reality — that self improvement is a hoax.

And even if he stretches himself beyond what he thinks as possible, his mind will pull him back to his old bubble of reality.

It will focus only on the negative aspects, the obstacles in the way and create emotions to lead him back to where he started.

He is in other words limited by his narrow reality.

And even though you might think the example of flying sounds silly — the things beyond your reality is also beyond your reach.

Because you can only manipulate reality to your corresponding level of mind.

Because your mind is what creates what you see as reality.

And when you miss this, you run into a lot of problems.

In fact, probably every single one of your problems stems from being stuck in a narrow reality.

• Self improvement becomes an eternal cycle of ending up where you started

• You’re chronically stressed because you never feel like you’re doing enough

• Genius ideas and solutions to your problems become invisible because they’re outside your reality

• Opportunities for better health, finances and relationships float right by you

• You get stuck in your current level of career because you’re never able to improve your skillset

• Terrified of the grip fear has over you, you embrace inactivity and let your dreams and ambitions slowly die off

And whenever you try to reach beyond your current reality, you’re almost always pulled back to your one.

Because your mind is truly your biggest enemy, because it does very much not like change.

For the simple fact that change implies death, and your mind wants to live. Which you can’t blame it for, because that’s its job. That’s how it has kept you alive until now.

But it gets stuck thinking that what has worked before must be the best and only way. And so it structures your entire reality around that.

And if you try to reach beyond that reality, your mind will do everything in its power to pull you back.

It can make you tired out of nowhere, zap your motivation or even make you depressed.

It’s why a lot of people feel completely down and sad when they start to improve their lives. Because their minds are resisting it.

Because change, no matter how good, is uncomfortable.

”But Simon, can’t I just overrule my feelings with logic and rationality”

Sure.

But you’re still missing the point.

Because the very logic you’re using to overrule your emotions is itself a part of your mind and reality.

You can’t think your way out of your reality, because thinking itself is a part of your reality.

You can’t outsmart the mind with the mind!

This is why self improvement is so tricky — because it only works within your reality.

It only works within the boundaries your mind has set.

So is the idea of self improvement just a pipe dream?

Are we all doomed by some hand of fate to live the lives we’re already living?

Because you can’t very well improve your mind from within your mind can you?

But here is where the sun shines through the clouds.

Because even though it’s a little bit tricky — it’s 100 % possible.

But it’s very seldom talked about, because people tend to see intelligence and creativity a something fixed.

But that very mindset is just a function of their current level of intelligence and creativity.

The solution is so painstakingly simple, to open and develop your mind.

So let me take you on a journey to the solution to (most of) your problems.

Becoming The Master Of Your Reality

You’re stuck where you are because you see self improvement as something you do.

But it’s not really about improving your life — it’s about learning to see more of it.

It’s about expanding your mind and your reality with it. To get to a sense of reality where your dreams and ambitions are allowed to exist.

Because when you develop and expand your mind — so does the circle closing you off from your potential.

You’re learning to see more of reality and as a result, open up new possibilities along the way.

Crazy ideas turn into real possibilities and opportunities start appearing all over the place

And with your mind no longer holding you back, you’re allowed the mental resources to go after life.

You’re allowed the motivation, passion and meaning to chase your goals because it’s now a part of your reality.

You stop the mental civil war inside your head.

You stop being tormented by negative emotions pulling on you to get you all the way back where you started again.

To wrap your mind around this — let’s do a quick exercise together.

Take a second to look around you. What do you see?

Reality?

The external world?

But as far as your concerned, everything you see, hear, think or feel is just a happening inside your head.

It’s the receptors in your eyes that are turning electromagnetic waves into light.

It’s your ears that are turning the vibrations in the air into sounds and music.

People have this feeling that they’re inside their heads looking out at the world from behind the eyes? That there’s this blind spot behind your forehead , and that’s where you are located.

But consider this, how it feels like to be inside your head is exactly what you’re experiencing right now.

Including the thought that it’s not.

Because you’re always inside your head. Because it’s impossible to be elsewhere.

You see, without you there wouldn’t be something called the sun. There wouldn’t be something called music.

And there wouldn’t be what you call reality.

And it’s in this way that your mind is creating the world.

And it means that the development of your mind determines the reality you see. Because it determines how much of reality you’re focused on

But how do you know that there isn’t more to reality?

You don’t.

Because even though there are wavelength of light you can’t see — they’re still there.

And even if you’re using instruments to detect them, there’re still things beyond the scope of your instruments.

In the same way, you have no idea what the world is capable of being.

You won’t know how good life can be until it is.

Because you can’t see past your current reality.

What you need is blind faith that the reality awaiting you is worth getting to.

Then work to smash your mental barriers and expand your sense of reality.

So let’s get into that whole thing.

The System Inside Your Head

Your mind is a very complex system.

It’s an almost infinite amount of nodes tightly interconnected with each other.

And when a system becomes complex enough — it starts developing a sense of self or identity, and you can start to look at it as an organism.

And just like an organism, it starts to take its survival into its own hands.

Take the example of a bird. If you poke it or try to force it to do something, it will fight just back because it wants to survive itself.

Or take religions. They’re massively interconnected systems of people and ideas. And if you poke a religion, it will sure enough fight back to survive itself.

What is being survived is just that sense of self. The identity of being a bird or of being the right religion is what is fought to be maintained.

Consider how a rock doesn’t try to survive, because it’s too simple of a system. It doesn’t have a sense of self that it wants to maintain, and so it doesn’t.

A system that’s gotten complex enough will do everything in its power to maintain its identity. It will literally shape reality itself in a way that benefits its own survival.

This is why you have a negativity bias, because it allowed you to survive thousands of years ago.

This sense of self or identity is also called ”ego”.

And it’s your ego that is creating your reality.

It’s what determines the small bubble of reality your whole life is focused on.

It’s what interprets reality and therefore determines your potential in life. It’s what fights back at you when you try to expand yourself beyond your current reality. And it’s what will almost always pull you back to wherever you started.

And so expanding your reality and potential is the same as expanding your ego and sense of self.

Not in the way that you feed and increase your ego, that will just make it stronger and more narrowly focused on a smaller part of reality. It will only ignore more of your potential.

What expanding your mind really is — is incorporating more of reality into your sense of self.

And as you see more of reality, your ego also starts to have less control over you.

But here is where it gets tricky.

Because you can’t really look at yourself as something other than your ego.

And so you can’t just open your mind by sheer will. Because you’re still trapped inside your bubble of reality.

But that’s what so many people try to do (and often fail miserably at).

So to expand your mind from within your mind, you have to be tricky.

The key thing you have to understand is this:

To expand your mind you need enough mental energy.

Because to break free from anything you need enough energy to do so.

To escape the gravity of earth, you need to reach escape velocity.

To break the sound barrier, you need to reach mach 1.

And in the same way, you need enough energy to be able to look beyond your current reality.

Without it, your ego will use all energy it has to defend its current reality and way of life.

Because if it didn’t do that, you would be so open minded that your mind would just dissolve to every new idea and you’d go insane.

But when you give your mind an excess of energy, it has enough to maintain its current reality as well as consider new alternatives, ideas and possibilities.

It can afford to expend the energy to consider new and threatening ideas, participate in new behaviors and expand its current way of life.

You can see this in how older people become less and less open minded due to their lack of mental and physical energy.

Or how more creative and intellectual people have a higher brain metabolism.

And so the solution to most of your problems is creating more energy for yourself.

Because it:

• Gives you psychological resources to chase your goals and ambitions

• Makes you open to new ideas and skyrocket your creativity

• Expands your potential, the way you see the world and what you’re capable of achieving.

But to do this — you need to master both levels of your mind.

Because it exists on the biological and psychological as well.

And you can’t neglect one or the other,

That’s how you get the health freak without a plan for his life or the psychologist without the energy to execute on his.

Both aspects are non negotiable.

But having that said, we’ll need to start with the biological.

Because you need a base of energy to open your mind before you start manipulating reality.

So without further we do…

Let’s learn the subtle art of reality shifting.

The 6 Gates Of Reality

I’ve structured the steps you can take as a series of gates you have to open.

Each one builds on the other and leads towards ultimate open mindedness and potential.

You can conceptualize it like this, the further you get, the closer you come to unlocking more of reality and your potential.

And so you can’t really open gate 3 before you’ve opened gate 1 and 2.

This may sound woo woo, but think back to the practical aspects we’ve already gone through.

And remember that this whole letter is about the benefits of having an open mind. So try to have one.

Let’s go through them all.

1. The Gate Of Energy

People seem to forget that their mind exists on a biological level as well.

The energy you use to think, imagine and act is made up of ATP, neural chemicals and ions.

The source of all your psychological energy is physical.

That’s why we need to begin by understanding how to unlock more of it. In other words, how to unlock more of your metabolism.

And more specifically, brain metabolism.

There are 5 key things you need to do for this:

1) Diet

There are a few things you can eat to either unlock or shut down your metabolism.

And in other words, expand or shrink your bubble of reality and potential.

Here are the things that will unlock your metabolism:

Natural sugar:

Sugar has gotten such a bad rep.

Because most of the sugar you find is processed and emptied of metabolic nutrients.

In reality, sugar and glucose is essential for life itself. And especially your brain.

Your brain can literally not function without glucose.

And even though it can use ketones to turn fat into glucose, it’s very inefficient.

And the boost in mental clarity people get from cutting out carbs isn’t because sugar is bad, but because they get filled with the stress chemical cortisol instead.

I talk about this and how to master your sugar consumption in the letter ”stop fearing this molecule (if you care about your existence). Read that one after you’re done with this.

But you’ll come a long way with just this key insight:

Eat natural sugars like honey, lactose, fruits and berries.

Seed oils:

Are you really surprised that seed oils are on this list?

When it comes to metabolism, these rascals really cause a lot of trouble.

They get stuck in your mitochondria’s cell membranes and mess up cellular respiration.

In other words, they make the batteries that power your life (mitochondria) ”leaky” (But we’ve already talked about this).

So look at the labels on your food and avoid ingredients high in omega 6 such as:

• Seeds

• Seed oils

• Certain nuts

Or just don’t buy food with labels :)

Saturated fats:

This is really the opposite of seed oils.

They strengthen your cell membranes and make your life batteries stronger.

It also helps strengthen neural connections and frees up much more mental energy to see and move through the world.

So look for animal fats like:

• Gee

• Butter

• Tallow

And no it won’t make you fat or give you heart attacks.

Just keep it to a moderate intake (as we go over in the sugar letter).

2) Sleep

Nothing matter unless you get this right.

Sleep is what restores the function of all your cells, especially in your brain.

It’s what Bryan Johnson so eloquently put it ”the foundation of your conscious existence”.

But our modern environment has made getting a good night’s sleep next to impossible. And it’s for that reason we’ve talked about sleep so many times.

• The ultimate method of falling asleep (and supplements)

• Using light to your advantage

• The 8 gates of sleep

I think these 3 will really help you.

But you probably know how you sleep well, you’re just not doing it.

3) Cardio

Exercise is how you teach your body to channel its energy.

Mentally and physically.

It isn’t enough just to eat 3000 calories.

You need a way of using it as well. And to do that, you can’t skip your cardio

Cardio increases blood flow to your body and brain, providing more oxygen and mental energy

Cardio builds new and improves the efficiency of mitochondria which fuels both your mind and body

Aim for:

• 180 minutes of zone 2 cardio a week (30 minutes not the elliptical 6 days a week)

• 16 minutes of either HIIT or SIT a week

I won’t go into too much detail here because I want to point you to another post I really think will give you a lot of value; ”Why you’re never ready (or have the energy to workout)”.

4) Sunlight

Sunlight is the master switch of your biology.

It’s always been an evolutionary constant and we’re constantly matching our biology to the light that hits our eyes and skin.

When you’re in touch with your light environment, your metabolism and energy goes up in the morning and day and then falls towards the evening.

If you’re not, your energy becomes spread out over the day and you can’t get anything done in the morning and can’t fall asleep in the evening — not a good combination.

So to get in touch with your light environment:

• Get 10 - 20 minutes of sunlight in your eye every morning

• Try to get out in the mid day and evening and watch the sun

• Avoid blue light between the hours of 9 pm to 4am

If you want to dive deeper into this, check out the last letter on photosynthesis and environment.

(Yes I know I’m linking a lot of letters).

Now you have a base of physical energy to use.

But you need to master the psychological plane as well.

2. The Gate Of Now

Let me tell you something shocking.

Your fears, anxieties and worries doesn’t really exist.

They’re all just projections of your ego, trying to keep you inside your bubble of reality.

And the problem with indulging in them is that you’re also wasting tremendous amounts of mental energy.

And you don’t have any left to actually move through the world and build your life with.

To expand your mind and unlock your potential, you have to ironically let go of your worries about self improvement and any kind of progress you want to make.

Because that by itself is your ego keeping you where you are.

You see, it’s tricky like that.

But to do that, you need to make the realization that the only thing that exists, the only thing that ever will exist — is the now.

The things going on around you right now is the only thing that truly exists.

The future is an imaginary anticipation and the past is simply a memory — and both are appearing here and now.

The thoughts themselves are real, but what they represent are not.

Recognizing this deliberately is what’s called meditation.

I’ve talked a lot about meditation in previous letters, but here I want to really go into it. Because it’s just so important. And I never realized just how important it was until just a few weeks ago.

It’s a very fundamental key to unlocking your potential and expanding your reality.

It’s how you move out of your own way and experience what this life really is about.

And it’s how you finally rid yourself of the endless torment by thoughts, anxiety and guilt.

So here’s the thing about meditation (that most people miss).

True meditation is done for no reason at all.

Because as soon as you have an ulterior motive — you’re not meditating.

If you’re meditating to clear your anxiety, to become more disciplined or even to expand your mind — it’s not meditation. Because you’re not fully in the present moment.

True meditation is as Alan Watts likes to say ”a digging of the present, a kind of grooving with the eternal now”.

It’s a watching of whatever is going on.

And as you get better and better, you can start to aikido thoughts and emotions.

But in the beginning, start by watching.

Let your eyes see whatever they want to see, let your ears hear whatever the want to hear and let your mind think whatever it wants to think.

Just notice it.

If you want to get a lot out of meditation, the usual recommendation is about 20 minutes a day of sitting with your eyes closed.

But you can meditate anywhere at any time.

• On a walk

• While doing chores

• During your workouts

Just be wherever your feet are.

When you do this regularly, the storm inside your head will start to fade.

And instead of expending tremendous amounts of energy trying to control everything by thinking or being stressed and anxious — you let go.

And when you do that, that energy becomes available to you.

And you can actually use it to exert some control over your life.

So when you let go of control, it ironically comes back to you.

3. The Gate Of Attraction

You’re morally obligated to follow your curiosity.

It’s what makes you unique in this world, and what you can bring to it.

Because curiosity implies a problem that you’re called to solve. And that’s how the world moves forward.

But more just being a contributing human being to society, when you follow your curiosity, when you study and learn about things you actually care about — you increase your brain’s metabolism.

You give yourself more energy to use for thinking, creativity and acting. And you expand your mind as well as unlock more of your potential and reality.

So find something you can’t pull away from. And follow it until everything makes sense.

It doesn’t matter if it’s something so seemingly unpractical as building legos — it’s pointing you towards something deeper.

And even if it isn’t, it’s still making you more equipped to deal with the rest of reality.

Action:

My favorite way doing this is the following:

I like to set a timer for 30 - 60 minutes and then either scour the internet for things I’m interested in such as psychology, philosophy or biology or read some book I’ve been putting off.

Why a timer?

Because it keeps you from getting distracted and has a clear cutoff time which forces you to get the most out of your curiosity session.

Another way is to always keep a library of interesting lectures or podcasts on spotify that you can listen to while commuting, on a walk or when doing chores.

Find what works for you and keep at it.

4. The Gate Of Future

Your imagination is powerful.

For the biggest reason that your mind can’t tell it apart from reality.

Because as you now know, reality and your mind itself are the same thing ;).

But the difference is that you have a bit more control over your imagination than your reality.

As such, by visualizing positive scenarios into the future, you’re creating fabricated memories. And your mind responds to this by making it part of your current reality. And it becomes a part of what’s possible for you.

You can also think about it like this:

When you set a goal and really internalize it, you also direct your attention. And your mind structures your reality after that goal.

Imagine opening your fridge when you’re starving as opposed to being stuffed. When you have the goal of eating something you’ll see a lot more opportunities than if you don’t.

In the same way that a person who doesn’t have the goal of writing an amazing novel won’t notice amazing ideas appearing in his consciousness.

And another point I think is very fascinating is from the book psycho cybernetics.

If you’ve really visualized something, you program it into your mind as a goal. And your subconscious will literally move you towards that vision without you having to expend extreme effort.

This is really a cheat code to expanding your mind.

So let’s go through how you would do this.

Action:

Think of your giant vision and goals in life.

Write it down on a piece of paper or in a digital document.

Then sit down for 20 minutes and visualize how it would be like to achieve it.

Be extremely specific with the colors, sights, smells and feelings. Try to make it as close to reality as possible.

Note: If you want to dive deeper into this, check out the book ”psycho cybernetics” by Maxwell Maltz

5. The Gate Of Acceptance

Whenever you try to expand beyond your reality — your ego won’t be so inclined.

And it will fight back to keep you where you are, simply because it wants to survive.

So when you’re trying to achieve something that has previously been outside of your reality, like quitting junk food, television or any other habits you deem as bad, you will encounter something called ”ego backlash”.

It’s when you’ve been trying to establish a new behavior and have had some success. But then suddenly, get thrown back to where you started. As if you took one step forward and then 2 backwards.

Maybe you tried to create a writing habit every morning and had some success with it. But after some time you start to feel depressed before opening up your laptop. You ask yourself why you’re even bothering or start convincing yourself to watch some tv show or getting a cup of coffee first.

But if you just fight it and force yourself to do it anyway — you’re just entering a vicious circle. 

Your mind will start to fight like hell, with sadness, depression, anger, sleepiness and so on, until you finally give in or feel so bad you start considering not to go on living.

That’s how far this can go.

And it’s why addressing it is of such importance.

Action:

The 1st step to dealing with ego backlash is to notice it.

Realize that the cravings for your bad behavior is just your ego trying to survive. Don’t judge it, seek to understand it.

The 2nd step is counterintuitively to accept yourself.

Know that it will take some time for you to move over to a new reality and different way of living.

Be patient and give permission for the emotions you’re feeling to exist. Realize that this isn’t a sign of regress but of progress. It’s part of the process you see?

The 3rd step is to deconstruct your emotions and thoughts.

By taking apart your emotions and thoughts and tracing them back, you start to see the bigger picture and they will start to fade. Realize that it’s just your ego trying to survive and that it’s nothing wrong with that.

Think back to why you wanted to create a writing habit and how it will aid your life.

Then have some patience with yourself and get back to writing again.

6. The Gate Of Challenge

Your mind is a muscle.

If you don’t train it, it atrophies.

And as your mind becomes more and more comfortable, so does your reality shrink with it.

And your potential slips through you fingers.

So to keep your reality and comfort zone from shrinking, you need to continuously challenge your mind.

And there are a few key ways to do this:

• Facing fears

• Social interaction

• Reading difficult books

• Learning a musical instrument

• Writing out big and messy ideas

• Practicing a difficult physical skill

The key is to challenge yourself and live on the edge of your abilities.

It does’t really matter what it is. Even though I think you get the most out of pushing yourself in the domains of health, wealth, relationships and happiness.

Because it’s there that you experience maximum growth, enjoyment and, well, happiness.

And I talk about all this in the letter ”why you should bother to improve your health (and cultivate a reason to live)” which I highly recommend reading after you’re done with this.

Accessing Your Potential

When you open all 6 gates:

1. Energy

2. Now

3. Future

4. Attraction

5. Acceptance

6. Challenge

You give your mind the energy to open itself up.

You create a base for expanding your mind and reality.

Of incorporating more possibilities, ideas and life into your experience.

And with that my friend, I hope you’ve enjoyed this letter.

This was a pretty deep topic (which is why it took me a while to write it) but I felt that it was something more people really should understand.

Thank you for reading.

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- Simon