It Was The Train Ride From Hell… But Not For Me

I think you can learn from everyone – either as examples or anti-examples.

Here’s something we can all learn from.

I caught the train recently – interstate, so it was a long trip. Not long after I sat down, two people got on – a woman and her son. She would have been in her late 20s or early 30s. He would have been eight or ten.

They had two hours ahead of them.

I bet it felt longer.

The woman had barely sat down when the boy was already wriggling, squirming, complaining and nagging. It was common kid’s stuff, you know how they get.

He wanted to play games on her phone. She said it was nearly flat, so he couldn’t.

I know what you’re thinking – what a convenient excuse to keep him off her phone. Nope, it was really flat. I know this because she asked me if the train had USB charging ports. It didn’t, but I lent her my portable charger.

Even then, there was just enough charge for her to make whatever calls she needed to.

So her son wriggles more, squirms more, complains more, nags more.

She tells him to stop.

He does, for a few minutes.

He asks for money to buy food.

She tells him she has food if he’s hungry.

He doesn’t want that food, of course. Back to the wriggling, back to the complaining…

After 20 or 30 minutes of this, she’s yelling at him to sit still and be quiet. Strangely enough, he squirms and nags more than ever.

The boy did settle down a few times. I can only imagine how relieved the woman was to finally have some quiet, to let herself think.

Every time, he would break the silence a few minutes later with a calm, quiet question. She’s not the only parent to make the mistake of ignoring the kid, hoping to keep the quiet going. So, of course, he plays up, doing what he knows will get her attention.

And then they’re back to yelling at each other.

Seeing a parent struggling with a child is like listening to someone vomit. It might be unpleasant to be around, but it’s way worse to be the one experiencing it.

With the woman’s phone charged a little, she hands it to him to play with it. That buys her a few moments of silence. Then she’s back to yelling at him, telling him to play this game and not that game because that one had ads and –

For the last 20 minutes of the trip, she’s out of patience. She’s yelling and smacking him, he’s screaming and crying, each making the other more and more miserable.

It must have been the train ride from hell.

Not for me, though – I wrote a few chapters of a book while tuning them out.

“Couldn’t you have helped them, William?”

Define ‘could’. I could have put them both to sleep for the entire trip. I could have made them enjoy the entire ride as they feel relaxed and happy.

But I don’t go around imposing what I think is best on folks. Unless they ask – or there’s real danger – it’s not my place to change anyone.

I showed them both kindness and compassion, which they lapped up like cats after a dust storm.

I led by example by staying calm throughout the ride, inside and out.

Anything more would have been overstepping my bounds.

Now, this isn’t me having a go at some poor woman. She was doing the best she could. In fact, she was doing better than her best. I imagine a younger version of herself, before she became a mother, wouldn’t have had what patience she did. The younger her would have curled up into a ball with her fingers in her ears after 20 minutes.

But she didn’t need more patience.

The only thing that would have helped is to change.

This isn’t a story about parenting – it’s about anything.

I see folks trying to advance their career… and failing.

Trying to find love… and struggling.

Making all the wrong decisions when it comes to their friends, their health and their finances… and wondering where it all went wrong.

Then they ‘read a book’ that teaches them ‘a cool tactic’ and they think – finally, this is what I need.

But the woman on the train didn’t need some parenting tip – some magic phrase or gesture that would have calmed her kid right down.

She didn’t even need ‘to be a better mother’, whatever that means.

What she needed was a new way to think and a new way to be.

You see this in everything from seduction to sales, too. People learn some new behaviour – a trick – and think it’ll solve all their problems.

Make eye contact, touch them on the arm, use their name…

These external tactics don’t work…

Not until your internal state is sorted.

Contrary to popular advice, you can’t fake it til you make it. If you could fake confidence, who would be anything other than that?

You develop, experiment and explore at home, then be your new self in the boardroom.

For that woman, the Train Ride From Hell started long before they reached the station…

And it’s still going.

She and her son will only exit the vehicle when they find new ways of being.

Think the thoughts you haven’t been able to think yet

I reckon you’ve been curious about what separates the elite performers, thinkers and leaders from the mundane ones.

A challenge can inspire one person… while another crumbles from the pressure.

A crisis can transform an ordinary person into a hero… while another retreats from the world.

It comes down a difference in how you see the world.

How you think.

But no one is teaching you how to think differently.

I see so many young, smart, talented and ambitious folks struggling. You know life can be more – that you can be more – but you don’t know how to create that.

If you ask for help, you’ll get all sorts of well-meaning but awful advice.

“Learn a skill!”, “find a hobby!”, “travel!”, “get a new qualification!” – this is what people offer you, as if you’re after some small tweak to one part of your life.

You don’t want a tweak.

You want a revolution – to shed your weaknesses, harness your untapped abilities and transform your life.

That’s what I offer you.

Welcome to the thoughts you haven’t been able to think yet.

I’ve spent years honing the skills to shift you into different consciousness states, where you can think around your stubborn problems, explore new possibilities, and grow.

If you want to become who you know you can be, this isn’t optional – you have to think outside the comfortable and familiar grooves of your own thoughts.

I’m not going to tell you what to think – you’ve had enough of that for three lifetimes.

I’m going to show you what brilliant things you have in that gorgeous brain of yours, just waiting to come out.

How much can I give you each month?

I asked that question of myself a lot.

I want to overload you with so much value, your life after subscribing is noticeably better than before.

Here’s what I settled on. If I change this, I’ll only change it upwards:

• a monthly email newsletter covering deep, advanced ways to transform, explore and evolve your consciousness. I’m not talking advice like “practice gratitude” or “here’s how to be more confident” – I’m talking shifts so fundamental, they create gratitude and confidence as a side effect.
• two group catch-ups a week, offset by about 13 hours. I’m not saying I accommodate every time zone, but I will catch most of them. They’ll be recorded in any case.
• if you ever struggle to apply what I share with you, you’ll have premium access to me to ask me about it. I’m not happy unless you’re using this subscription to grow and elevate, each and every month.
• discounts and exclusive offers. My goal is to always offer you a discount bigger than what you paid that month.
• no dorky Facebook group to clutter up your profile. Yes, that’s a feature. I want a real connection with you, not some algorithmically-dependent, privacy-caustic, ad-infested, democracy-decaying nightmare with an ugly interface.
• a referral program, where you can earn discounts and exclusive bonuses for spreading the love.

You get all that the moment the first issue arrives.

On top of that, you get these bonuses with your first issue:

Bonus: 34 ways to discard any unwanted habit or emotion

Your emotions, habits and instincts might be automatic, but they’re not inevitable. There are many proven ways to unravel these ghosts in your neurology – here are 34 of my favourites. You will learn:

• Why deer and wild dogs don’t suffer from anxiety, even after surviving an attack,
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• The only technique that helped me recover from a significant betrayal,
• “Psychological time travel” – using your mind to rewrite your past,
• Biochemical wreckers that most folks can’t go a few hours (or maybe even minutes) without,
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• The “school playground” game that can get you unstuck from even stubborn thinking,
• Why most problems aren’t problems and are, in fact, perfectly sensible reactions to the real problems,
• The brutal and effective technique most folks get worse at with each year,
• How thinking like a renegade priest will transform your crisis into a solution,
• The “leaky stone” technique that brings more clarity than you need,
• A process where the bigger your challenges, the stronger you become,
• The suspiciously simple tai chi technique that some soldiers use to overcome PTSD,
• Longevity and happiness secrets from organisms much older than you,
• The way to defeat any negative emotion without fighting it,
• A simple way to correct doubt, anxiety and self-sabotage,
• How modern living accidentally strips you of pride, dignity and satisfaction – and how to get it back,
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• What might just be the oldest physical and emotional well-being technique humans have (and still use),
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• How knowing that anger and sadness aren’t real can help you avoid them,
• An anti-anxiety technique so simple, a child can do it,
• The technique that’s too hard for most people… but can nearly instantly resolve anger, blame, hatred, guilt and loss,
• Why problems aren’t problems and how expert advice can hurt you,
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• The powerful technique that makes me an asshole for even thinking about it.

Most of your challenges will fall to any of these.

Nothing holding you back can withstand all of them.

Bonus: The only wellness advice that isn’t stupid and dangerous

I’m not a doctor. You’d have to be clueless to take my advice on your wellness.

I’m offering it anyway.

Although it’s not so much ‘medical advice’ as how to find the best qualified person to give it.

Thanks to the incessant culture war that leaves nothing untouched, there are now two common schools of thought:

“Oh, you’re sad that your dog died? You know, there are pills that will numb you right up!”

Versus:

“Oh, you’re chronically depressed? Medicine is a scam – have you tried yoga?”

Yeesh – no thanks to the both of those.

As far as I can tell, there’s only one way through this. I’ve seen skilled and compassionate doctors do this and I’ve seen doctors… who don’t.

Want to know which kind of medical professional you have?

See if they ask you these sorts of questions.

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Again, I’m not a medical professional, so do what you will with this info.

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Exploring your limits and evolving doesn’t have to be complicated.

That’s why I built Phronesis Accelerator around three core ideas.

That’s all – just three.

Yet there are thousands of ways to think about, apply and enhance them. And there’s no change or improvement I’ve found that doesn’t tie to (at least) one of them.

With this bonus guide, you’ll learn:

• Why the semi-common fantasy of being a disembodied brain in a jar would be a nightmare – no matter what awesome robotic appendages or laser eyes you had,
• How to flip the script on your negative emotions, turning them from your wardens to your servants,
• Simple things that change a day from ‘meh’ to ‘hell yeah!’
• How having a routine can literally make you dumber,
• Why those cutesy “brain training games” also make you dumber – and what makes you smarter,
• The root causes of your psychological pain – and how to dig them out,
• How to keep yourself for settling for a life you don’t want,
• Why your hunter-gatherer instincts can make modern life so unsatisfying (and what to do about it),
• The thing that makes fear – even terror – irrelevant,
• How hypnosis can ethically help you in everything from your career to your love life,
• Why the two common attitudes towards sexuality both leave you unhappy and exhausted,

Bonus: Become more memorable (and therefore likeable and influential)

As a hypnotist, I know you can influence someone and have them not remember it.

As they say – just because you can, that doesn’t mean you should.

Going the other way and being more memorable is not only a more ethical way to influence someone, it’s easier to learn and it works at scale.

After all, don’t you want everyone you meet to tell their friends how great you are? Word of mouth only happens when you stand out in someone’s mind.

You will learn:

• The child-like secret to being memorable (hint: it’s not about being cute, precocious and innocent),
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• The boring story of me shaving and what it can teach you about being interesting,
• How to snap people out of their own daydreams and routines,
• Ways to use your negative and weak emotions – like anger – to make your story stand out,
• How inventing words can add clarity to your message,
• Why being contrarian usually makes people dislike you… except when you do it to people who already like you,
• The lesson from evolutionary psychology that makes control freaks pay attention to you,
• A simple technique that makes short stories compelling,
• Why no one believes (or even likes) your political and economic opinions,
• What criminals, mass shooters and jerks can teach you about making friends.

FAQs

How much content is there each month? I don’t want to feel overwhelmed…

I’m going against expert advice here.

When I told some people how much I was giving away each month, they warned me against it. They pointed to leading experts who said people prefer less content, so they feel like they’re mastering what they get.

They said I could serve my audience better by giving them less.

I considered the advice, politely thanked them for it and immediately rejected it.

I’m not going to ‘serve you better’ by giving you less than you need. That patronising nonsense panders to the lazy. If weak-minded people run away from my offer, screaming and tearing their hair out…

Good, I’ve done my job.

Each issue of the newsletter is 30-40 pages. That’s not a firm range – it’ll be as long as it needs to be.

You can get through it in less than an hour per month.

It’s also broken into small sections, so you could read each chunk in a few minutes per day or two.

If you (somehow) can’t find the time to do that, here are also the group calls, where I’ll discuss some of the concepts and examples. The group calls supplement the newsletter – they don’t replace it, but they can help you absorb the content faster.

If that’s still too much for you, you can prioritise your reading. Each newsletter focuses on a topic or theme, with each section exploring a different aspect or perspective. Each is conveniently tagged, too. If you prefer to focus more on taking yourself to new heights, then you can read those first and get to the others if you have time.

And if that’s still too much for you, then I recommend you do anything else but subscribe.

What if I fall behind with the content?

Then you fall behind. It’s no big deal – catch up when you can, then recommit to staying up-to-date with it.

You’ll have access to your issues in your email inbox, even if other things may age off.

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It’s a text-only newsletter, written by a reader and for readers. You could always run it through a text-to-speech program if you’re desperate, but I don’t recommend it. If a little over a page per day scares you, you won’t be able to handle what I talk about in those pages.

Yeah, yeah, I’m sure you’re ‘an audio learner’. That’s a preference, not a limitation. How much do these labels you give yourself hold you back, I wonder?

What’s your cancellation policy?

You can cancel at any time, no hard feelings.

What you can’t do is cancel and then rejoin. When you subscribe, I burn the boats behind you. There’s no cosy retreating – you have to commit.

If you quit because you’re overwhelmed or you can’t afford less than two bucks a day, then your priorities are in the wrong place. Quitters aren’t hungry enough to use what I share, so there’s no point in letting you back in once you leave.

Can I pause my subscription?

No. See above.

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I guarantee that I’ll give you lots of unique and valuable content every month. If you disagree, then I guarantee to cancel your subscription.

All sales are final and I don’t offer refunds. If there’s a technical glitch, I’ll do everything I can to ensure you get what you signed up for.

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Cover image by Matthew Brodeur on Unsplash