mark@TheLimitlessCoach.com
Beyond Wealth Companion Guide
A BEYOND Wealth support guide designed exclusively for Tiger-21 members
Discover the Ultimate ‘Meta-Skill’ for Creating an Extraordinary Life!
Because a ‘Successful’ Career isn’t the same as a ‘Successful’ Life.
Introduction
Reality
The Mind
Living with Intention
The Extraordinary Life
Prelude:
The material in this course is based on Mark Fournier's BEYOND Wealth live event hosted by Tiger-21 and Chairperson Steve Schmitz and offered exclusively to those chapter members who attended the event on 10-8-2025. It's primary purpose is to reintroduce the material shared during the event while building upon it and providing them with greater detail and support in an effort to help them further understand the principles taught during the event. And more importantly, to provide them with exercises that will help them apply these principles to their life and career.
The Tiger-21 Profile
I've been coaching Tiger-21 members for years, and my favorite part of working with you is how fascinating your profiles are. You're not average. Far from it. Many of you are:
chaos-thriving
risk-surviving
rule-breaking
deal-making
goal-setting
no-regretting
always-striving
sleep-depriving
micro dosing
party-hosting
dream-pitching
nerve-twitching
swordfish-grilling
Red Bull-swilling
some-bullshitting
never-quitting
trailblazing
hell-raising
Rebels
renegades
rainmakers
dopamine-driven disruptors
dynamos
and bad-ass capitalist rockstars!
(but not in a Lex Luthor sort of way... more like Tony Stark, or... NEO from The Matrix.) And I dig that!
You also tend to fit into one of the following two categories:
Those who believe that 'making far more money will ensure a far better life'.
(I call this the Moneymoon phase)...
And yet, you are still searching… you might not even know what you are searching for, but you know there is something more… you may wonder if perhaps, it's the final phase of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Self-Actualization.
Those who used to believe that 'making far more money will ensure a far better life'.
(They now believe that no matter how much money they have, that 'new jet smell' eventually loses its musty charm, babies in first class cry just as loudly as in coach, and 'love' isn't the only thing money can't buy.)
And either way, most KNOW that money will only take you so far and you're ready to evolve to the next level... the level where you CAN finally 'take control of your life and create LASTING happiness & fulfillment'.
Granted, most of us grow up believing that money is the master key to life's locked doors. Before the age of 20, especially in capitalist societies, the narrative is drilled into us: the more you have, the happier you'll be. And to be fair, there's some truth in it. Going from $10,000 to $100,000 radically improves life. Ten million will change it even more. But at a certain point, the curve flattens. At a billion, it's mostly just numbers on a ledger. The slope of the happiness curve gets flatter, until it's almost imperceptible. The difference between a $100 million lifestyle and a $1 billion lifestyle isn't 10x—it's barely measurable. This is known as the Law of Diminishing Returns, and we will cover it carefully in just a few moments as this, and other critical insights that we will cover, is something you must understand and overcome if you wish to sustain a fulfilling life.
Even Elon Musk, worth nearly half a trillion dollars, has said repeatedly:
"You don't want my life. I'm not THAT happy."
The Restless Billionaire Syndrome
For two decades I was intimately involved with a family worth tens of billions. During that time, I carefully observed their lives (and those of their equally wealthy peers). You might say I had a penthouse view of the whole shebang. Although I had already achieved financial success of my own, it never came close to the level of magnitude I experienced. To put it into perspective: folks say, "If you want to see the wealthiest people in the world, go to a Formula-1 race in Monaco and hang out with the race teams." Well, this family (and their friends) were the kinds of people who didn't just 'hang out' with the teams, they owned them.
#2
Inc. 500 ranking
They literally hit #2
#2
Golf course ranking
Best privately owned golf course in the world
They also owned companies ranked at the top of the Inc. 500 list... in their case, they literally hit #2. They were also recognized for having the #2 best privately owned golf course in the world, and they won their share of Indy 500's and other races as well. And guess what? The races got boring, and being #2 'sucked'... even when it was #2 in the WORLD.
So clearly, extraordinary wealth and recognition did not guarantee extraordinary happiness. In fact, of the wealthiest people I encountered, most were restless, apathetic, anxious, or unfulfilled. Despite the momentary spikes of joy they experienced from 'all that money can buy'... something was still missing. And that 'something' couldn't be fixed with money... or power... or fame.
It's also something that keeps everyone from creating the kind of extraordinary life they desire... not only the wealthy. The difference is that the wealthy are the ones who eventually 'know' that money and power aren't enough, because they've tried. Which is why they make such great coaching clients, because they're ready to do something 'different', and they usually give it everything they've got because they've run out of solutions.
Fortunately, the things they really want, sustained happiness, fulfillment, peace of mind, passion, meaning, and purpose... these things they CAN still attain, just not through money or power. And THAT is where BEYOND Wealth comes in.
The Evolutionary Trap
Why is "enough" never enough for long? Because humans aren't wired for contentment. The complacent ones — the tribes who stopped searching and striving, the ones who settled for whatever was in front of them, they died out. They consumed their resources and starved.
The survivors? They were the restless ones. The seekers, adventurers, innovators, risk-takers, and malcontents... they kept moving, pushing, and striving. And those are the genes you inherited... especially YOU... highly successful individuals are actually the outliers... you're the ones who got an extra dose of these genes. That relentless drive behind your ambition? Your insatiable curiosity? Your reappearing discontent? It isn't weakness. It's evolution.
That's why, no matter how much you make or milestones you reach, you soon after find yourself restless, and searching once again for the next challenge. It's also why guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Cruise simply cannot STOP doing MORE! It's no longer about the money... BTW I highly recommend that you watch the 3-part mini-series on Arnold Schwarzenegger (Arnold)! It is awe inspiring and loaded with priceless lessons on life. The special on Tom Cruise (The Last Movie Star) is worth watching as well... especially if you like a good comeback story.
So, back to why this keeps happening. One of the main culprits is called 'Hedonic Adaptation', and this adaptation had tremendous evolutionary value to our ancestors, because that is what kept them striving. But here's the paradox: the very thing that drives your success is also the thing that robs you of fulfillment.

You've heard of 'dopamine' — the brain's "reward chemical." Dopamine is a powerful and useful hormone, but it doesn't reward you with happiness. It rewards you with excitement and craving. It whispers: "Just a little more. One more deal. One more win. One more zero."
And the moment you get it, the baseline shifts. The goalpost moves. The rules change. What once was considered a success (getting on the podium) may now feel like a failure (only second place) ... but it isn't failure. It's neurology. This is called 'Dopaminergic Dysregulation' (yikes!), and, as with Hedonic Adaptation (and others that we will cover shortly), you are, once and for all, about to understand why 'more' is quite often never enough, and, more importantly, what you can finally do about it.
As you know by now, 'wealth' is a very useful tool for improving our lives, but it is NOT the answer to everything... so there's a good reason why 'more' is never enough... because 'more' isn't the solution.
Next up... Part 1 'Reality'.

Reading tip: I provide 'Clinical' breakouts throughout this document for those who wish to deep-dive into the science... Chances are, most of you would prefer to skip the sections titled 'Clinical' and that's just fine. The Clinical sections aren't there as much to 'teach' the material as to 'validate' it (for the slightly skeptical among you). Validating the material has great value because once you believe in it, you're much more likely to DO it!
Part 1: Reality
Subjective Reality
(Your Mind's 'Interpreting' System)
Reality isn't what you think it is, it's what you THINK... period. Sound confusing? Hopefully, not for long. I've been coaching since the 1970s so there are dozens of awesome topics that we could go into, but I've chosen the one that I believe has the greatest potential of any I've ever known for dramatically transforming your life. This is true regardless of whether you already love your life or, you've discovered that the joy, fulfillment, and peace of mind you desire, never seems to last. As such, the purpose of this document is simple: to change your perception of 'reality', then hand you the controls! Think 'Neo learning Kung Fu (and a dozen other things) in seconds' or 'Tony Stark building his Iron Man suit from scraps in a cave'. Not because we're living in a computer simulation... or because this is something you can achieve or master in moments, but because mastering what you call 'reality' has the potential to alter your life that dramatically... far more so actually.
Most of us think we're responding to the world as it is. We're not. We're responding to what we believe it is. We don't experience reality directly. We experience our interpretation of it. I am going to say this in a multitude of ways before we finish because it is perhaps the most difficult concept of all to fully understand, assimilate, and apply. But it is insanely worth it!
An 'objective, physical reality' does exist — but until your mind perceives and interprets it, it has no "meaning" for you... any more than a raincoat has meaning to a fish. Until you give reality meaning, it's just 'background noise'. And your 'interpretations' always depend on 'context and comparison':
  • Is rain good or bad? How about 'clowns'?
  • Which is better Cats or Dogs? Batman or Iron Man?
If your answer depends on how you look at it, or on who is doing the 'looking', you're not describing reality — you're describing your interpretation of it. Your reality, not the reality.
Even when you can see something right in front of you, you're still not experiencing reality in its truest form... you're only experiencing what your eyes and other senses tell you it is. Imagine coming across a misty, formless cloud. You ponder it as it drifts only a few feet away. But you don't know what to make of it. Is it Good? Bad? Safe? Dangerous?
That's physical reality: it's real, but meaningless to you... until you interpret it... Just like the mobile hanging above a newborn baby's crib. The infant stares blankly at it with no reaction because for the moment, it is 'nothing' to her.
Back to the 'mist'. Suppose your senses kick in and you suddenly smell coffee and think, "Ah — this must be steam from a latte! I love coffee. This is steam and it is good." But someone next to you is recovering from the third-degree burns (and PTSD) she got from spilled coffee last week and thinks "Oh no! This is bad!" But what if it's actually a poisonous gas that just 'smells' like coffee? In either case, it's the same vapor, but different worlds. That's subjective reality.
Or take a roller coaster with two people sitting side by side — one screams in ecstasy, the other in terror. Identical physical reality. Two completely different 'subjective' realities. It's not about the 'roller coaster' it's about the 'riders'. In fact, it's almost NEVER about the 'thing' and almost always about the 'interpreter' no matter what is happening!
"Nothing is 'good' nor 'bad' but 'thinking' makes it so."
William Shakespeare
The Glass Box
(Your Mind's Operating System)
Now let's imagine your consciousness before you are conceived as it drifts through the vacuum of space. On the day you are born, it is placed in a 10-foot by 10-foot glass box... so it can be transported to earth and connected to your body. And from that moment on your physical body begins sending signals and feedback to your consciousness about its experience of the world around it.
The feedback comes in the form of vague opinions at first, such as "being cold and hungry is bad", 'being warm and fed is good', and so on. But soon, there are so many messages coming in that you begin writing them down on sticky notes and posting them on your glass walls just so you can keep track of them. This goes on year after year with sticky notes covering more and more of the walls (like in the movie Bruce Almighty). Even your parents, teachers, the media, and others start putting notes on your walls, sometimes without your permission, like notes about which political party or religion is better, and so on.
  • "Our party is right their party is wrong."
  • "People like us don't do things like that."
  • "You're brilliant." "You're difficult." "Money = Success."
Years go by. And the notes pile up until every square inch of your box is covered.
Eventually you can't even see outside.
Now keep in mind, there is still a "physical" reality all around your glass box but you can no longer see it. All you can now see are sticky notes, describing "your version" of that outside world. These sticky notes represent your "subjective reality" your 'programming' in the form of stories, thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, mindsets, and so on. And every single one of them is subjective! But to you they aren't subjective at all, they are literal descriptions of THE reality, exactly as it really is... to YOU, these are not mere 'stories' or 'opinions', but FACTS. And they run your life. And it's happening to you right now!!!
As you read this material, you are also being affected by the opinions you have regarding other things currently influencing you, such as nearby sounds, the room temperature, time of day, upcoming commitments, and so on. I once convinced an audience that as part of an experiment I was going to have them take turns singing sexy love songs while they danced on stage... as I handed out score cards and turned on the video camera they began to visibly panic! Their hearts raced, their blood pressure went up, one of them even vomited... even though NO ONE ever stepped on stage, and I could never have 'made' them do it either way. It was ALL 100% in their head.
Your "reality" is literally a story your brain is telling you! And this story is based on your sticky notes... it's like when a comedian goes around all day writing down ideas for a skit or a script writer collects ideas for a movie. Once they gather enough material, they cobble it together into a story... only in YOUR case the writer is your 'subconscious mind' and its writing the stories without your realizing it, so you think the story is REAL.

Simple: The sticky notes represent your brain's coding system. Whatever you write on them, your nervous system treats as "fact." And your brain manipulates how you perceive the 'real' world to align with these notes. Change the notes (the codes), change your reality.

Clinical:
  • Schemas: (reinforced here): mental frameworks in prefrontal cortex, stored in hippocampal-linked memory networks. They dictate interpretation (medial PFC, anterior temporal) pre-bias interpretation before evidence arrives.
  • Reticular Activating System (RAS): This brainstem filter admits signals that match the "notes" and suppresses what doesn't. Train the RAS with threat notes, and you'll notice danger; train it with opportunity notes, and you'll notice openings.
  • Neuroplasticity: Beliefs aren't static. Repeated thought patterns strengthen synaptic efficiency (LTP, long-term potentiation). That's why sticky notes harden into "truths" that feel self-evident.
  • Emotion regulation: Interpretations modulate amygdala reactivity. Threat-laden sticky notes → higher cortisol. Reframed sticky notes → lower cortisol, higher prefrontal coherence.
  • Predictive coding: cortex predicts what's "out there" and updates on error (Friston). You live in a rolling forecast, not a raw feed.
  • Reappraisal effects: reframing increases dlPFC/vmPFC control and down-regulates amygdala; emotions literally change on scan.
The Power of Belief
A few years ago, I called the police from a parking lot to report that my car had been stolen. I was mid-panic when I saw something vaguely familiar about 20 feet away and remembered: I was driving a rental car that day. (I briefly considered letting them go on thinking it was stolen just to avoid the embarrassment.
Instead... I chose to look at the situation through my 'Laugh at myself mindset' and wound up replacing humiliation with humor.)
And we've all stared at the ceiling at 3:00 am anxiously dreading an imagined disaster that never comes to pass. In cognitive behavioral therapy, we call it 'catastrophizing' and it feels so real it can trigger a panic attack... or at least a double dose of Ketamine.
Our beliefs are so powerful that if I told you that I had invented a way for you to jump off the tallest building in the world and float slowly and safely to earth without harm — and if I promised you that you'd get a trillion dollars, the cure for cancer, and world peace if you did it — and you BELIEVED me... You would not only jump off that building, no one could stop you! And yet in physical reality, you'd plummet at 120 mph, reach terminal velocity, then splat like a bug on a windshield. The only real reward would be never having to file taxes again.
The terrorists who flew jets into the Trade Center died believing they were heroes.
According to their sticky notes, they were.
WHY would someone do these things? Why do we do ANYTHING? Because 'We DO what we BELIEVE'. Talk about a powerful sales tool... you now know that if you're offering something to someone that you KNOW they need and can afford, and they still say 'no' it's because they don't believe you.

Simple: Belief trumps reality. We don't act on the world; we act on the world in our head.

Clinical:
  • Placebo effect: Belief in a sugar pill's efficacy activates endogenous opioid release in the anterior cingulate cortex and periaqueductal gray (Wager et al., 2004). Pain is reduced — not imagined, but neurologically real.
  • Nocebo effect: Belief in harm triggers actual nausea, headaches, or inflammation. Beliefs can sicken as powerfully as they can heal.
  • Terrorist example: Illustrates extreme schema-driven behavior. Social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) shows that group-based sticky notes ("we are chosen," "they are evil") justify behaviors that physical reality would never support.
As a result of our sticky notes and DNA, we don't have the kind of 'free will' we think we do. For example, if you believe you are in imminent danger, your amygdala will go into fight or flight and override your prefrontal cortex, thus superseding your conscious instructions and taking over your body. But what if you only imagined you were in danger? What if it wasn't REAL? It would still take over... because your subconscious doesn't know the difference between 'reality' and your interpretation of reality.
For example, have you ever put on VR goggles and tried walking across an imaginary beam high in the air? A lot of people can't do it... their amygdala takes over and literally, physically stops them dead in their tracks... because it 'believes' it's real... just as you can't stop feeling like 'the sun is rising and setting' even though you know the earth is moving, not the sun. In other words, once again: "Reality is Subjective!"

Simple: You can't just "logic" your way out of subjective reality. Feelings win, even against facts.

Clinical:
  • Amygdala hijack: Emotional brain circuits (amygdala, insula) fire milliseconds before rational brain circuits (prefrontal cortex). That's why fear persists even when you "know better."
  • Virtual reality research: Exposure to VR heights activates insula and anterior cingulate as if the threat were real, despite conscious knowledge of safety.
  • Evolutionary angle: This bias favored survival. Hesitating at a "fake" snake still costs little. Ignoring a real snake costs everything.
Your whole life is based on your stories and beliefs, regardless of whether or not they are true. If your sticky notes say "when people are late it's because they don't respect you," you may feel and behave very differently when they arrive late than if your sticky notes say they are late because they are optimists who mean well but just don't plan well.
And here's the kicker... everyone else is doing the exact same thing. They're living their lives based almost entirely on the sticky notes wallpapering the inside of their mind — while assuming that everyone else is looking at the exact same notes.
And then they wonder why others don't think, feel, or behave exactly the way they do!
But in truth, everyone behaves appropriately for their sticky notes. Their subjective reality. If your notes were identical to theirs, you would think, feel, and behave just as they do, especially if you shared their DNA. So how can you condemn them for doing exactly what you would do if you were them?
And... how can your subjective reality be the only accurate one out of over 8 billion different subjective realities? Is it possible that some of your notes could be... wrong?
And if so... wouldn't it make sense to change the ones that are not only wrong, but causing you pain and suffering, limiting you, or simply no longer serving your interests?

Simple: Beliefs drive behavior. If your sticky notes say "danger," your nervous system launches fight-or-flight. If they say "safe," you relax. And it doesn't matter if it's true. All that matters is if you 'believe' it's true.

Clinical:
  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Built entirely on this principle. Core idea: thoughts → feelings → behaviors. Change thoughts (sticky notes) and downstream emotions and behaviors follow.
  • Schema therapy: Young (1990) — identifies maladaptive sticky notes (schemas like "I'm unlovable," "People can't be trusted") and replaces them with adaptive ones.
  • Neural evidence: fMRI meta-analyses show that cognitive reappraisal alters connectivity between dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (top-down control) and amygdala (bottom-up threat response). New sticky notes literally rewire fear circuits.
  • Practical implication: Sticky notes aren't metaphors only — they're synaptic programs running your operating system.
  • Placebo/nocebo: belief changes physiology (endogenous opioids for analgesia; increased nausea/pain for nocebo).
  • Social identity/ingroup schemas can morally license extreme behavior (vmPFC value signals + amygdala threat tagging).
  • The story recruits motor plans and autonomic responses as if it were "true."
Question Everything!
So now you know... we really DO 'live in a simulation'! It may not be a computer simulation like in The Matrix, but it's still a simulation... a simulation we created with our sticky notes.
When Albert Einstein said, 'Question Everything!' what if he was referring to questioning the sticky notes in your glass box? Especially the ones that cause you pain and suffering. What if you considered the possibility that even your longest and most deeply held beliefs 'could be wrong'? Maybe it's time you started. It might just change EVERYTHING.
But when it comes to questioning what's in other people's glass boxes make sure you get permission before challenging their beliefs, especially when it comes to your mother-in-law.
Pythagoras, Pinecones, and Pickleballs
So here's a 'question'... what if, right this moment as we discuss reality being 'a subjective simulation', you are experiencing something like what happened 2,600 years ago when Pythagoras began telling his students that the earth was round, and that the sun wasn't rising and setting at all, but rather, the earth was tipping upside down every night (and taking them with it)? Can you imagine what that must have sounded like in a world with no understanding of astrophysics or even gravity? They would be like 'Yeah right... let's practice our stone throwing techniques on this guy'. That's like me telling you that your life is a 'simulation'... oh, yikes... maybe they only threw pinecones ...
Not surprisingly, it would be another two hundred years before even Plato and Aristotle came along to agree with Pythagoras. And it would be two thousand years before this (now obvious fact) was universally accepted by the masses. And why? Because it SEEMED like the earth was flat, and it SEEMED like the sun was doing all the moving. And since our physical senses play a bigger role in our lives than our 'common' senses, we tend to believe whatever aligns with our sticky notes, even if it isn't true!
That's why I'm trying to change your sticky notes right now... so I can change your beliefs and hopefully keep you from throwing pinecones (or pickleballs) at me.
Just think about it... you are, right this moment being given the opportunity to be just like one of the few who people on earth who believe Pythagoras when he shared his revelation.
The fortunate individuals who succeed in making this exciting paradigm shift get to instantly leap to the head of the line in their quest to live an extraordinary life.
Those who try creating a limitless life using their physical resources are bound to fail because they don't have limited resources... no one will live forever or have infinite wealth or power. But we DO have limitless MINDS so if we create our extraordinary lives from the inside out, we get to tap into the limitless resources of our limitless minds. All you need to do is take control of what you choose to 'see' and how you choose to see it.
NOTHING is as it seems; EVERYTHING is as it SEEMS. ...as it seems to you... because EVERYTHING is 'Relative'.
Einstein explained it best when he said:
"Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity."

Simple: Einstein wasn't just talking about physics. He was talking about perception. Time, pain, and pleasure all seem so real, but even they bend under the weight of your sticky notes (relativity).

Clinical:
  • Time perception: Dopamine in the striatum and prefrontal cortex alters subjective passage of time. Higher dopamine (e.g., in novelty, reward, or stimulant use) compresses time; low dopamine stretches it.
  • Pain perception: Placebo analgesia demonstrates that expectancy alters activity in pain-processing regions (somatosensory cortex, insula, anterior cingulate).
  • Emotional relativity: Brain's salience network prioritizes stimuli according to relevance, not objective magnitude. That's why losing $100 can hurt more than gaining $100 feels good (loss aversion).
As Epictetus wrote 2,000 years ago: Men are not disturbed by 'things', but by their view of things."
And THIS simple insight leads us to 'The Ultimate Meta Skill'... if your life is based on the thoughts and beliefs (sticky notes) that form your subjective reality, you can take control of your life by taking control of your programs & perceptions! And it's infinitely easier than taking control of the whole world.
For example, who is better off... someone with a $20 million net worth, or someone with a $200 million net worth? The answer is... the one who 'believes' they are better off. You might be thinking... 'Yeah but at some point, EVERYONE would be satisfied... I mean two hundred million is a LOT of money, even to me." And yet Elon Musk reportedly lost $34 BILLION dollars in a single day and barely flinched... to him, $200 million is like $2 dollars to an average retired American. It's all relative... in fact, everything is 'relative'... which is what makes it subjective.

Simple: The truth is out there...
but if your sticky notes say something else, you'll live by the notes, not the truth.

Clinical:
  • Confirmation bias: People seek and interpret information in ways that confirm preexisting sticky notes. Neural basis: ventromedial prefrontal cortex reward signals spike when confirming evidence is encountered.
  • Illusion of truth effect: Repeated statements are more likely to be believed, regardless of accuracy (Hasher et al., 1977). Sticky notes get "glued in place" through repetition.
  • Implication: Physical reality may be stable, but subjective reality is malleable, socially reinforced, and sticky.
Let's compare reality to a camera...
  • If it has no lens: everything is a blur (This is "physical reality"... it's there but you can't tell what it is so it doesn't mean anything to you).
  • Snap on a lens (your interpretation) and the world snaps into place. (This is subjective reality... now that you believe you know what you are looking at it seems totally 'real'.)
  • Switch to a different lens (change your interpretation), and you see a completely different world... even though the world itself (physical reality) hasn't changed at all. (This is the beauty of subjective reality... it's fluid... you can change it to suit your needs.)
That "lens" is your mindset. And just as with a mindset, everything it is exposed to it will be shaped and experienced through that perspective (in your mind). Change your LENS, change your LIFE. (It isn't just a slogan — it's neuroscience.)

Simple: Mindset is the filter that sharpens the blur into a world you recognize. Most people try to swap the subject matter instead (point the camera at something else) when they don't like what they are looking at. Masters swap the lens (Mindset)

Clinical:
  • Attentional control: Prefrontal cortex modulates what the parietal lobe selects for focus. Changing the lens = shifting attentional bias.
  • Cognitive reframing: In neuroimaging, reframing reduces amygdala reactivity and increases dorsolateral prefrontal activity. In other words, shifting the lens is physically measurable. (Ochsner et al., 2004). Translation: swap the lens, and fear quiets while control strengthens.
  • Mindset research: Carol Dweck's growth vs. fixed mindset paradigm — students with a growth lens persist longer, achieve more, and report greater satisfaction.
  • Schemas: Bundles of associations in medial prefrontal cortex, anterior temporal lobe. They bias interpretation, often unconsciously. One sees a 20-foot wave as the best day of the year; the other sees it as death. Same wave. Different schema → different world.
  • Perceptual sets: The brain uses schemas to interpret ambiguous stimuli. Different lens = different schema activated.
  • Default mode network (DMN): Overactive DMN = rigid lens (rumination, depression). Mindfulness and reframing quiet DMN and let alternative lenses in.
  • Therapeutic tie-in: Exposure therapy + cognitive reappraisal are clinical applications of "new lenses" — not changing reality, but the frame
Opportunity vs. Victim Mindset
(Why the world is full of inventions)
And in case you are wondering, there are countless mindsets. But unlike lenses, where you can only attach one lens at a time, you can have a dozen mindsets working simultaneously. For those of you who are involved in AI, a mindset is a little like an 'Agent'. Once you set it up, it takes over and does the heavy lifting.
Someone with an "Appreciation" mindset for example, trains their mind to continuously look for things to appreciate. And since, as Goethe wrote: "We see what we are looking for." ...those who continually look for awe and beauty will SEE more of them. Meanwhile, someone with a "Victim" mindset will find proof of problems everywhere they look. And someone with an "Opportunity" mindset? They see possibilities everywhere.
For example, I love telling people that I don't have any 'problems'. To which they quickly roll their eyes, until I explain this it's not because my life is perfect, it's because I've created an 'Opportunity Mindset'. So, my opportunity 'lens' converts every 'challenge' into an opportunity before my mind has time to label it as a problem and before my basal ganglia has time to trigger my 'fight or flight' amygdala. If you don't see it as a problem in the first place your body won't respond to it as a problem.
Every object in the room where you're sitting right now exists because someone ran it through an Opportunity 'filter' and turned a "problem" into a solution.

Simple: Your mindset dictates how you respond to both your subjective world and the physical world. For example: 'Producer' mindsets contribute wherever they go; 'Victim' mindsets complain.

Clinical:
  • Selective attention: Reticular Activating System (RAS) filters sensory input according to goals. Priming the RAS with "opportunity" literally shifts what makes it into conscious awareness.
  • Broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson, 2001): Positive emotions expand cognitive repertoire, increasing problem-solving and resilience. Negative mindsets narrow attention.
  • Entrepreneurial brain: Studies show entrepreneurs exhibit higher activity in anterior cingulate and dorsolateral prefrontal regions when assessing ambiguous opportunities — they see "openings" where others see "risks."
Picture a monk, sitting in the middle of a frenetic New York deli at lunch rush, totally serene. Chaos outside, calm inside. That's not denial. That's mindset mastery.
Being able to control how you feel at any given time (like learning to laugh at yourself) can come in pretty handy when you do something like...proudly showing off your new Patek Philippe to a Tiger-21 member whose net worth (you discover) has more zeros than your watch has programable time zones and you suddenly feel like Jack Black strumming a banjo on stage at a Black Sabbath concert... while wearing his 'stretchy pants'.
The Trap of Comparison
Ever notice how good you feel about your life... until you compare yourself to someone with more? That new electric Lamborghini you just bought suddenly loses its luster your neighbor buys one with a longer-range battery. Your family vacation to Santorini becomes just another way to kill time when you compare it to your friends' space flight with Richard Branson.
This isn't greed. It isn't even ego in the classic sense. It's something far sneakier: 'Upward Social Comparison'. And because when it comes to reality where 'nothing means anything until we compare it to something else' this is a big deal!!!
Suddenly, the only way you have of knowing how good you have it is by avoiding people who have it better.

Simplified
Psychologist Leon Festinger nailed this back in 1954: human beings define themselves by comparison. And when you're surrounded by ultra-achievers, your brain doesn't compare you to the average person — it compares you to the person sitting two chairs down with a few more commas on their balance sheet.

Applied
Tiger-21 is the perfect Petri dish for this. Everyone in the room has already "won," but the comparisons never stop. The result? No matter how much you've achieved, there's always someone ahead of you on some metric.

Clinical / Deep Dive
  • Upward Social Comparison is a well-documented psychological phenomenon (Festinger, 1954).
  • It activates the anterior cingulate cortex (error detection) and the ventral striatum (reward circuit), producing a mix of envy, restlessness, and "not enough."
  • fMRI studies (Takahashi et al., 2009) show increased amygdala activation when participants compare themselves unfavorably with others — even when their outcomes are objectively good.
  • Among high achievers, repeated exposure to "bigger, faster, richer" peers leads to chronic dissatisfaction, despite extraordinary objective success.
  • Translation: the comparison treadmill is wired into your neurology. Left unchecked, it hijacks your sense of satisfaction.
Just this one trait in human nature can make or break your sense of self-worth, happiness, and fulfillment. And we are barely aware we're doing it. Regardless of our station in life, virtually everyone compares... certainly in western culture.
Is a three-car garage good or bad? It depends on whether your neighbors have two-car garages or four-car garages... and yet, most of the people on this planet don't have any garage at all, or even a car to put in it. They're busy looking to see which of their neighbors have indoor plumbing!

Simple: Your brain scores your life on a curve. That sudden collapse in confidence isn't because you showed off your watch to someone far wealthier than you. It's because a sticky note in your head said (compared to the other guy) you weren't good enough.

Clinical:
  • Social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954): Self-evaluation occurs by comparing it to others. Upward comparisons (to those "above" you) often reduce self-esteem and satisfaction.
  • Neural basis: Ventral striatum (reward) activity drops when individuals earn less than peers for the same task, even if their absolute earnings are high (Fliessbach et al., 2007). The brain encodes relative value, not absolute.
  • Entrepreneurial profile: ADHD/ADD + dopaminergic dysregulation (see Appendix) amplifies this effect — novelty-seeking, impulsivity, and social competition become addictive.
  • Clinical: Ventral striatum reward signals drop when peers earn more for the same task, even if your absolute payout is high.
    Upward comparison down-regulates reward, amplifies threat/ego circuits. If you've got ADHD traits or dopaminergic turbo-drive, this effect is loud and habituates fast.
Quick Assignments
(Do these today to give yourself a head start on your training)
Lens Audit (2 minutes total)
  • Name 3 situations that bug you (late people, slow service, market dips).
  • Identify the current lens (Disrespect, Control, Scarcity).
  • Choose and run a new lens once today (Optimism, Patience, Opportunity).
  • Notice how you change — regardless of whether they do.
Reality Reframe (60 seconds each)
  • Catch a reflex story: "They're late → they don't respect me."
  • Swap: "They're optimistic with time and I love optimists; I'll set clearer expectations next time."
  • Feel the immediate shift in mood and behavior.
The Pause Button (on-demand)
  • When anxiety/annoyance spikes, silently name it.
  • Ask: "What lens am I using?"
  • Switch lenses. Breathe deeply, release, proceed.
Exercises
Lens Swap (Live Use)
  1. Identify one "problem" you're dealing with this week.
  1. Write three alternative interpretations that could also be true.
  1. Pick the one that best serves your outcome and take one micro-action aligned with that lens (email, calendar buffer, renegotiated expectation).
Time: 2–3 minutes.
Sticky-Note Swap
(In the Moment)
  1. When you feel a spike (annoyance, defensiveness, dread), silently tag it: "Note spotted."
  1. Name it in less than 5 words (e.g., "Late = disrespect").
  1. Replace it with one that serves results (e.g., "Late = optimist; I set clearer agreements").
  1. Take a tiny action to lock it in (template text; 10-min buffer; calendar auto-reminder).
VR Rehearsal
(Feelings vs Facts)
Go to an Apple store and put on their VR goggles. Stand on the ledge or plank. Notice your body's reaction. Now breathe slowly (4 counts in, 7 counts hold, 8 counts out), label the sensation ("I am safe, this is all in my head, this is FUN, I can 'fly'"), feel the shift. Try it again.
Time: 1-2 minutes
Bottom Line
  • You are the author of your sticky notes.
  • Your notes script your simulation.
  • Change the notes (or the lens), and the world changes — even when nothing outside has moved an inch.
Warren Buffett wrote: "The greatest investment you can make is in yourself."
So, if you want to take control of your life, you must first take control of your mind — the primordial origin story of your reality.
Part 2 – The Mind
If Part 1 was about shattering the illusion of Reality, then Part 2 is about meeting the mysterious manipulator behind the curtain: your mind. As touched upon earlier, the very thing that got you here — your ambition, your drive, your risk- taking, curiosity — is also the thing that keeps you restless. It's the engine and the brake. And unless you learn to master it, it will keep running the same play: "More, more, more." 'More' what? You may ask. For some of us, its more... of everything! More validation, recognition, and approval, more stuff, more freedom, more time, more love, more excitement, more fulfillment, more purpose and relevance, more direction, more peace of mind, more... But here's the twist: mastering your mind isn't about shutting off all the noise or pretending you can control every thought (good luck with that). It's about understanding how it works — at the level of neurons, neurotransmitters, and evolutionary wiring — and then learning to work with it instead of working for it.
In Part 1 we revealed that we don't experience life directly but only through the interpretive sticky notes plastered inside our glass box, and Part 2 is where the rubber meets the runway. Because once you fully accept that reality is subjective, the natural next question is: Who's writing the sticky notes? And even more importantly: How do you get the pen back?
The answer: your mind.
The problem: your mind.
The solution: mastering your mind.
Yep, the thing running the show is both the saboteur and the savior. Your brain evolved for survival:
  • It's biased toward scanning for threats.
  • It amplifies fear, anger, and pain more than joy.
  • It adapts quickly (hedonic adaptation).
  • It normalizes to repeated stimuli (habituation).
That's why the applause, the deal, the new car, the magazine cover, none of it stays thrilling for long. The mind habituates to it and says, "Next!". Originally, this was so you wouldn't 'stay in one place for too long' and use up your resources. Remember, your DNA doesn't know that you have limitless resources for survival, nor does it care. Its job is to keep you alive... not 'happy'. This isn't broken. It's biology.
But here's the tragedy: most people never learn how to use this knowledge. They stay stuck in the hamster wheel, chasing "more" without ever asking themselves how to stop the desire for more, much less where it's coming from. They let a bunch of random sticky notes and outdated evolutionary schemas run their lives instead of taking control of them... until now. Finally, you can start taking control of the controls... you can game the system... and turn it into an advantage.
For example... my marketing company took advantage of a little thing called 'The Reticular Activating System' when we discovered that most people only notice a 'sale' when they are looking for something to buy... in this case, we had a furniture company that decided to close one of its stores because it was doing so poorly, so we held a 'going out of business sale'. Suddenly, they had so much business in that store that they decided to keep the sale going and just keep sending more furniture over there. Guess how long the sale lasted? Three years!
So how was that possible? It was because until someone was thinking of buying furniture, they never noticed the TV ads that had been running for all that time... but the day they decided to buy... they suddenly 'saw' the ads and felt like it was a coincidence that the sale was going on right 'now' when they needed it. I call this 'The Law of Awareness'. It's MY answer to The Law of Attraction where they teach that you 'attract' things to you by thinking about them. What I say is that these 'things' were there all along but due to the Reticular Activating System you never noticed them until you started thinking about them... and now they appear to be everywhere.
How can you use this knowledge? For starters:

Exercise: Stop whatever you're doing right now and spend the next 10 minutes 'thinking about and focusing on' all the beauty and awe in your life (instead of all your problems) and watch how much more beauty you will suddenly become aware of, and, consequently, how much better you will feel.
Seriously, when was the last time you tried running through your house blindfolded (not recommended) or even buttoning your shirt without thumbs? If you did it wouldn't take long to find yourself in awe of your eyesight... and let's face it, opposable thumbs are pretty amazing too! Now do things like this and other focus-related activities every day!
What other 'brain hacks' can you use to 'cheat' your biology into giving you the life you desire? For starters, it helps to understand 'the biology' so let's pull back the curtain and look at the seven big players, and later we will show you how to hack every single one of them. Although we've already touched on a few of them, we'll take a deeper dive this time.
Homeostasis
The Hidden Conductor
Before we dive into the Big Seven influences (below), there's one more principle
you need to understand: Homeostasis.
Homeostasis is your brain and body's constant drive to keep things balanced — the thermostat of your biology. It's why your temperature stays near 98.6°F, your blood sugar stays within range, and your neurotransmitters don't keep firing until you burn out. And here's the kicker: homeostasis is the reason the Big Seven exist. It's why dopamine highs don't last, why the thrill of the jet fades, why you normalize lottery wins or losses, why comparison keeps you restless.
In other words: homeostasis is the law of gravity holding the entire system together. The Big Seven are just the visible rules.
You can't "turn it off," but you can learn to work with it. Think of it as the referee in the game of the mind — keeping score, calling fouls, and making sure the game doesn't spiral out of control. Ignore it, and you'll always feel pulled back to baseline. Respect it, and every hack you're about to learn becomes far more effective. We will look at practical ways of managing it in Part 3.
Dopamine
The Fuel of Ambition
Simplified:
Dopamine is the brain's hype-man. It's not about having the jet — it's about chasing it. That thrill you get when you're closing the deal, making the play, or buying the next toy? Dopamine. It's why you keep checking your phone, why Tiger-21 members keep scanning for the next "10x," and why the high of a 'big win' fades faster than a winning streak at the Black Jack tables.
Applied:
For entrepreneurs and executives, dopamine is both jet fuel and quicksand. It drives your risk- taking, innovation, restless curiosity, and perseverance — the traits that made you successful. But it also leaves you perpetually longing. Each achievement becomes the new "baseline" the new 'normal'. Your brain whispers, "What's next?" even while you're standing in your dream home, on your private island, staring at your yacht. Without mastering dopamine, you'll run the treadmill forever.
Clinical:
  • Dopamine is a catecholamine neurotransmitter produced in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), substantia nigra pars compacta, and hypothalamus.
  • The mesolimbic pathway (VTA → nucleus accumbens) governs reward prediction and reinforcement learning.
  • Dopamine firing is phasic: bursts when reward is anticipated, but not sustained once reward is achieved (Schultz, 1997).
  • Chronic overstimulation (novelty, gambling, drugs) → receptor downregulation → blunted response to natural rewards.
  • Clinically, Dopaminergic Dysregulation Syndrome (DDS): compulsive gambling, hypersexuality, shopping, tied to overstimulated mesolimbic pathways.
  • Entrepreneurs with ADHD-like profiles mirror aspects of DDS: risk-seeking, compulsive drive, restlessness. This is why >80% of UHNW (Ultra-High Net-Worth) entrepreneurs resonate with this wiring.
Habituation
Why Joy Fades With Repetition
Simplified:
The first time you fly in your jet, dopamine spikes as you feel the acceleration and thrust of its powerful engines catapulting you from the jetway. The 50th time you fly, it's just Tuesday.
Applied:
It's not because you're broken or ungrateful. It's because your brain literally stops firing as strongly when it experiences the same stimulus over and over. The cheers and applause generously showered upon a celebrity eventually become background noise, just as the sound of a nearby highway or airport fades away over time, because your nervous system "tags" it as being unimportant. That's why sex with the same person loses some of its kaboom, and even swimming in the ocean becomes rather ordinary... when you live in Malibu.
Clinical:
  • Habituation = non-associative learning where neural response diminishes with repeated exposure.
  • Mechanism: reduced presynaptic vesicle release, attenuated excitatory postsynaptic potentials.
  • Human fMRI: decreased amygdala + anterior cingulate activation when exposed to repeated stimuli (Grill-Spector et al., 2006).
  • Foundational: Eric Kandel's Nobel-winning work on Aplysia californica. Repeated siphon touch → reduced gill-withdrawal reflex → caused by diminished neurotransmitter release.
  • Translation: The same process that makes a sea slug stop reacting to touch is why your $50M yacht feels less exciting the 10th time than the first.
Hedonic Adaptation
The Treadmill of Success
Simplified:
Like Habituation, Hedonic Adaptation also causes things to feel less exciting after extended exposure. However, with Hedonic Adaptation it's more of an emotional issue than sensory. Whereas Habituation simply numbs you to repeated stimulus, Hedonic Adaption keeps you from staying in an elevated state for long periods (be it a positive or negative state). Over time, you will always return to your baseline level of happiness. It's called the 'Happiness Set Point'. See below for details. As a result, whether you win the deal, learn to fly, and buy a Monet, or you lose the deal, fail your flying test, and your Monet gets stollen, you will soon enough wind up just about as happy or unhappy as you were before it ever happened.
Applied:
Ultra-wealthy entrepreneurs often learn this the hard way. A $10M jump transforms life. A $100M bump? Less so. A billion? Mostly just numbers. Your brain normalizes the extraordinary and drags you back toward baseline. That's why even the most powerful keep restlessly scanning for the next conquest.
Clinical:
  • Hedonic adaptation = return to baseline happiness despite major gains/losses.
  • Classic study: Brickman, Coates & Janoff-Bulman (1978): lottery winners vs. paraplegics → both groups returned near baseline within a year.
  • Mechanism: mesolimbic dopamine downregulation. Novelty = phasic firing; repetition = reduced firing.
  • fMRI: reduced striatal and prefrontal cortex activation with repeated exposure to rewards (Diener et al., 2006).
  • Related to Hedonic Set Point Theory: ~50% of happiness variance = genetic predisposition (Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, Schkade, 2005).
Happiness Set Point
The Gravity of Mood
Simplified:
Ever wonder why some people bounce back quickly from setbacks, while others can't hold onto joy no matter what? That's your Happiness Set Point — your emotional "gravity." Your level of 'happiness' represents a kind of 'terminal velocity' that is written into your DNA.
Applied:
This explains why, even after extraordinary achievements, some UHNW entrepreneurs still feel dissatisfied. Their brains are wired to hover around a certain baseline of happiness, regardless of their toys and joys. Without intentional rewiring, or strategic planning, they get pulled back down time and again to where they started. Fortunately, the same wiring pulls you back UP when times are tough. In both cases, you are unlikely to deeply suffer or frenetically rejoice for long. And some of us have higher or lower set points than others. In the Winnie the Pooh series, Tiger would have a very high happiness set point and Eeyore would have a very low one.
Clinical:
  • Set Point Theory: Each person has a genetically influenced baseline of well-being (Lykken & Tellegen, 1996).
  • Twin studies: ~50% of happiness variance explained by genetic factors (Tellegen et al., 1988).
  • Mechanisms: stable personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion), serotonin balance, dopamine reuptake efficiency, endorphin sensitivity.
  • Plasticity exists: sustained practices (gratitude, reframing, meditation, CBT techniques) can shift the baseline upward through neuroplasticity.
  • Translation: You can't delete your set point, but you can raise it — intentionally.
Upward Social Comparison
Why the grass seems greener
"Comparison is the thief of joy." Theodore Roosevelt
Simplified:
You can feel like a king in your castle — until they build a bigger one right next door. Suddenly your marble floors look like linoleum, and your pool feels like a puddle.
Applied:
This is the cruel trick of comparison. In a Tiger-21 room, the "reference group" isn't the world — it's the guy or gal next to you. And since someone will always have a bigger exit, a larger yacht, or a fancier board seat, it can be difficult to ever feel "complete."
Clinical:
  • Origin: Festinger's Social Comparison Theory (1954).
  • Neurology: upward comparisons activate the brain's threat detection and reward systems simultaneously → producing envy, dissatisfaction, and restlessness.
  • fMRI: individuals shown peers doing "better" in status or wealth tasks displayed reduced ventral striatum activity (lower reward response to their own outcomes) and heightened amygdala activity (negative affect).
  • Chronic upward comparison contributes to anxiety, depression, and reduced life satisfaction among UHNW populations (Fiske, 2011).
The Law of Diminishing Returns
More, more, more...
Simplified:
Your first $10M changes everything. The jump from $100M to $1B? Barely moves the needle. Each new dollar buys less additional happiness than the last. 'My cup runneth over' aptly describes what happens after a certain amount of anything... once your shot glass is full you can keep on pouring in the Patrone, but it won't make a difference... a bucket of water could save someone's life but dump it in the ocean and... nothing.
Applied:
Your private chef doesn't make food taste 100x better than a Michelin star. The Gulfstream doesn't make you 100x happier than the Citation. At scale, wealth upgrades are mostly lateral moves. The curve flattens, which is why "more money" fails to deliver "more meaning." After a certain level of wealth, 'meaning' in your life MUST be derived by other means (such as mastering this material).
Clinical:
  • Economic principle: each additional unit of consumption yields progressively smaller marginal utility (Jevons, 1871).
  • Neuroscience: diminishing dopamine reward prediction error with repeated/scaled stimuli.
  • Neuroeconomics: Kahneman & Deaton (2010): happiness plateaus at ~$75K annual income (inflation-adjusted US data), though life satisfaction rises with wealth.
  • Translation: Objective gain ≠ proportional subjective benefit.
Reticular Activating System (RAS)
The Brain's Filter
Simplified:
Ever buy a new car, and suddenly you see it everywhere? That's your RAS at work. Think of it as your brain's bouncer — deciding which of the millions of inputs hitting your senses each day get into the VIP club of your awareness. It's like the superstar high school athlete who is going to be a professional athlete asking 'why do I need to learn advanced calculus?' Only it's your subconscious saying 'why do I need to learn or pay attention to ANY of this? And the answer is (the kid was right) you probably DON'T!
Applied:
For entrepreneurs, this is mission-critical. If, for example, your RAS is tuned to threats, you'll spot risks everywhere and miss opportunities. Tune it to possibilities, and suddenly opportunities appear "out of nowhere." It's not magic — its selective attention shaped by your sticky notes. It's the RAS just doing its job. Once again, I call it The Law of Awareness. The idea being that everything you need is out there... but there are a lot more things that you don't need... so your RAS does its best to ignore everything except for what you tell it is important. This is like having a superpower because your subconscious doesn't sleep... it will start looking for the things you need from that moment on and it will never stop. The problem is it doesn't know what you need... it only knows what you tell it. But it speaks a different language than you... it speaks 'sticky note'. So, if your sticky notes say something like 'No one respects me', your RAS will start looking for proof of that... focusing on every potential sign of disrespect (even when it isn't there). This is where 'metacognition' (see below) can help because it will help you filter out the 'bad' sticky notes and help you (and your RAS) focus on the good ones instead.
Clinical:
  • The RAS is a network of neurons in the brainstem (medulla, pons, midbrain).
  • Governs arousal, sleep-wake cycles, and selective attention.
  • Sensory throughput: ~11 million bits/sec hit the senses;
    RAS forwards only ~50 to conscious awareness (Koch, 2004).
  • Influenced by prefrontal cortex expectations + limbic system salience tagging.
  • Reinforces existing schemas → confirmation bias.
  • Translation: You program your RAS with your beliefs. What you believe, you notice.
    What you notice, you reinforce.
Beyond The Big 7
As mentioned earlier, there are other powerful influences and processes beyond the above listed big seven that deserve mention because in the end, they have the greatest influence of all, including the following:
Homeostasis — The Referee of the Game
Simplified:
Your body and brain are always trying to balance themselves out. That's why highs don't last and lows don't last either. It's the reset button behind everything.
Applied:
This is why your dopamine fades, why you adapt to luxury, and why you return to a happiness set point. Homeostasis keeps you from being overstimulated, but it also keeps you from staying elated. You can't hack it directly, but you can influence it by working with your biology instead of against it.
Clinical:
  • Coined by Walter Cannon (1926), building on Claude Bernard's "milieu intérieur."
  • Homeostasis is maintained via negative feedback loops across the hypothalamus, limbic system, endocrine system, and autonomic balance.
  • Governs everything from cortisol release to neurotransmitter resets. Every Big Seven process is downstream of this balancing act.
Metacognition
The Lever of Control
So, here's another superpower. If subjective reality is a glass box of sticky notes, then metacognition is your ability to step back, objectively read the notes, and decide which ones stay and which ones get replaced. Metacognition can be used to take control of your RAS by taking control of what you say is important to you.
What thoughts and beliefs are you holding on to right now that don't serve you... the ones that limit you, or make you anxious, fearful, angry, sad, or apathetic? This is where you get to write the 'stories' you desire in place of the ones you don't!
This is also where a lot of people snap: "You're telling me to live in a fantasy world." And I excitedly reply: You already do! Your subjective reality is a fantasy world. It's a simulation you built — with sticky notes, stories, inherited beliefs, and unconscious habits. And because you believe it's real, it dictates your feelings, choices, and behaviors.
"The mind is the basis of all experience. Whether we experience happiness or suffering depends on our mind, not on physical reality." The Dalai Lama
Simplified:
Metacognition is "thinking about thinking." It's noticing your thoughts and deciding what to do with them.
Applied:
What thoughts and beliefs are you holding right now that don't serve you? Ones that cause pain, suffering, or limitations? What if you could spot them and swap them for ones that do serve you?
Clinical:
  • Metacognition = the monitoring + regulation of cognition (Flavell, 1979).
  • Neural correlates: dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) + anterior cingulate cortex (ACC).
  • Skills: error monitoring, self-reflection, cognitive control.
  • Metacognitive therapies (Wells, 2009) → effective for anxiety, depression, OCD.
  • Translation: This is the meta-skill. Mastering metacognition is mastering your ability to shape your subjective reality.
"We live in the mind. Reality is merely an illusion." Einstein
Exercise: The Sticky Note Swap
The Challenge:
Grab a physical sticky note.
Write down a thought or belief that isn't serving you (e.g., "If I slow down, I'll lose everything").
On a new sticky, write a replacement thought that does serve you (e.g., "Slowing down helps me appreciate my wins and maintain balance").
Place the new sticky over the old one.
Why it works: This physical ritual mimics what your mind is already doing — rewriting interpretations. It turns a vague idea into a concrete, visual act of reprogramming.

NOTE: It's important to understand that you can't just tear off a sticky note. You must replace it with another! That is how the mind works... it needs 'something' to take the place of the thought, habit, or belief that you wish to remove.
Pro tip: Repeat this daily for 7 days. Each swap trains your brain's neuroplasticity to fire the new pattern more easily.
That's the heart of Part 2 — The Mind: seeing your thoughts as choices, understanding the science behind why you feel restless, and discovering the lever called metacognition that lets you start swapping sticky notes at will.
Part 3:
Living with Intention
The final step toward creating an extraordinary life... and keeping it.
If Part 2 was about discovering the lever of control, then Part 3 is about pulling that lever... on purpose. Think of it this way:
Metacognition
is like holding a remote control and scanning the channels to see what 'programs' are playing. It's 'thinking about your thoughts'.
Living with Intention
is what happens when you stop playing whatever appears on the screen — and start pressing the buttons (with intention). It's choosing which sticky notes (programs) you want to replace, which to reinforce, and which to decorate with bold, vibrant Sharpies so they stand out and dominate your wall.
This is the difference between knowing and doing, between observing your thoughts and becoming the architect of your reality. It's the final step in your evolution... the only way you will ever be able to take full control of your life and create the extraordinary life of your dreams.
THIS is why... 'taking control of the 'perceptions & programs' that have taken control of your life' is the META-Skill of all time!
And it's the only way you CAN take control of your life because YOU are not really in control. Remember earlier when I said you don't really have the kind of 'free will' you think you have? That's because nearly everything you feel and do is the result of your subconscious mind carrying out its programs... in other words, you don't tell yourself to 'feel disappointed' when you don't get something you expected... rather, you tell yourself that you 'expected or needed' something, and then when it doesn't happen, your subconscious makes you 'feel' disappointed in direct proportion to how badly you told yourself you needed it.
The solution is to 'manage your expectations' and thereby indirectly manage your feelings. It works like this:
When you are driving down the road at 50 miles per hour and decide you want to stop... YOU don't stop your car, all you do is press on a brake pedal and that signals to the car that you want to stop, so your car then engages the hydraulics and discs etc which THEN stop your car. YOU can't stop a 4,000-pound car moving 50 miles per hour no matter how strong you are!!! So when you press your brake pedal, you are signaling your 'intention' that you want to stop... and that is what you are learning here... when, for example, you tell your subconscious that you want to live with an 'appreciation' mindset, which you accomplish by pasting up messages (code) about all the beautiful things in your life, and by also pasting up reminders (code) to look for 'awe' throughout each day... this is LIVING WITH INTENTION. It's the intention to live in appreciation.
And then, your subconscious takes over and starts doing exactly what you've 'programmed' it to do (through your sticky notes).
In other words, you may not be able to stop the car yourself, but you can 'program' it to stop (and 'smell the roses') whenever and wherever you wish by signaling your 'intention' to do so. And your 'signals' (code) come in the form of these 'sticky notes' that YOU write.
Examples:
Metacognition says: "I've noticed that when I think to myself 'If I don't close this deal, it will be a disaster!' It makes me feel anxious."
While Living with Intention then says: "I'm going to replace that sticky note with, 'Regardless of what happens, I will be fine, no single deal will ever define me."
Metacognition is questioning the validity of every single note in your glass box instead of accepting it as reality. Living with Intention is grabbing a stack of fresh sticky notes and rewriting any code that doesn't serve you. And these codes can do more than change your outlook, they can rewire your brain and even outsmart your evolution!
So there you have it... you've now been told that you don't experience reality directly... you experience it only through the interpretations of your mind (the sticky notes in your glass box), AND, you don't control your feelings and behavior directly... you control it through your subconscious, which is controlled by... you guessed it... the sticky notes in your glass box!
So, in the end... it keeps coming back to taking control of those freaking notes!!! That's how you master your life! And you take control of these notes through 'Intention'.
The Science of Intention

Simplified:
Living with Intention is about deliberately programming your brain's sticky notes (stories, views, mindsets, habits etc). Instead of letting your subconscious pile on these notes randomly, you become the author of the script. I sometimes call them haphazard habits and accidental attitudes because they usually just form on their own without our permission and then they infect our entire mental ecosystem. They decide not only how we experience reality, but how we respond to it.

Applied:
If your RAS is a bouncer, intention is the guest list. By deciding which 'programs' you want to live by, you "whitelist" those ideas so they get past the velvet rope of your awareness. Without this, your subconscious runs on autopilot, replaying old scripts from parents, teachers, and 8th-Grade Bullies.
Clinical:
  • Intentional practice leverages neuroplasticity — the brain's ability to rewire synaptic connections in response to repeated thoughts/behaviors.
  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): shows that intentional reframing of core beliefs rewires prefrontal-limbic circuits (Beck, 1979).
  • Implementation intentions (Gollwitzer, 1999): "If X happens, then I will do Y." Shown to strengthen prefrontal control over habitual responses.
  • Hebbian learning: "Neurons that fire together, wire together." Every intentional thought repeated enough times sculpts the brain's architecture.
  • Translation: Intention isn't fluffy self-help talk — it's self-directed neurocognitive conditioning.
Exercise: Hacking Your Brain
Up until this moment, The Big Seven have run your life, but now it's time to take back the controls, and wherever possible, even turn your DNA into your 'biatch' by harnessing and redirecting or capitalizing on it.
Dopamine
1
The Micro-Victory Loop
Turn your to-do list into a dopamine arcade. Write micro-tasks ("Send intro email" rather than "Close funding round"). Cross them off with a fat Sharpie. Each checkmark = a dopamine burst. Micro-tasks are also highly effective for those with ADD or ADHD (also dopamine-related) as those who have this 'condition' can be highly effective for the first 20 minutes or so of any project... by switching back and forth between short, measurable tasks, their heightened focus (and dopamine bursts) can be sustained almost indefinitely.
2
The Anticipation Hack
Delay gratification on purpose. Buy the toy, but don't open it for 48 hours. Plan a trip six months out. Dopamine fires strongest in anticipation, not completion.
3
The Progress Trophy
Keep a visible object (stone, coin, LEGO brick) for every completed milestone. Watch the pile grow. Your brain craves visual progress.
4
The Novelty Hour
Schedule one hour per week for pure novelty. Learn a language phrase, try VR fencing, cook Ethiopian food. Novelty = dopamine buffet.
5
The No-Outcome Challenge
Pick one pursuit where you intentionally disconnect from winning. Playing poker for peanuts, painting badly, singing karaoke. Reward the process. This retrains dopamine to fire on action, not just result.
Habituation
1
The Sensory Switch
Change environments and protocols. Work on the back patio, shower in the dark, play Pickleball with your other hand. Eat at every restaurant in your area. New sensory input reignites neural firing.
2
The Awe Walk
Master the art of awe. Take a 20-minute walk only noticing awe. Trees, buildings, faces. Notice your priceless sense of smell, sight, and hearing as you walk through a shady park... Share the most awe-inducing thing you experienced. Habituation crumbles under awe.
3
The Subtraction Fast
Cut out one thing you love (wine, phone, streaming) for a week. Or tie your thumbs down for a day. Blindfold yourself for an hour. Reintroduce it. Watch your appreciation explode.
4
The Remix Rule
Revisit something old in a new way: read Shakespeare as rap, listen to opera at full blast in your car, have a ramen contest to see who can create the most amazing ramen-based meal.
5
The "First Time Again" Game
Choose one daily activity (shower, coffee, sex). Pretend you're experiencing it for the first time. What do you notice? Training yourself to "re-experience" resets habituation.
Hedonic Adaptation
1
Reverse Bucket List
Instead of writing what you want, list what you've already done that once seemed impossible. Relive the win.
2
The Gratitude Bomb
Send three unexpected "thank you notes" — to staff, spouse, barista. Watch how their reactions reset your own appreciation. Let them see themselves through YOUR eyes.
3
The Radical Contrast Drill
Sleep one night without AC, electricity, or hot water. Tomorrow, your luxury home feels like heaven. We used to pitch a tent in the backyard and send our kids out there for the weekend... they never lasted more than one night.
4
The Role Swap
Spend a day shadowing someone with a fraction of your resources. Spend the night at your college roommates or nieces house... the one that smells like wet dog. 'Comparing your life to those with 'less' instead of 'more' for a change can be powerful.
5
The "Last Time" Frame
Imagine this is the last time you'll ever eat at this restaurant, hug this person, or fly first-class. The "last time" frame pulls you out of adaptation instantly.
Law of Diminishing Returns
1
The Deep Dive
Pick one item you already own (watch, car, art). Learn its full story: who made it, how, why. The richness grows exponentially as you transition from superficial to super special.
2
The Experience Amplifier
Instead of buying new, add an extraordinary layer to old: take your car to a local race track, hire a Michelin chef to cook in your kitchen, or fly to a remote village and spend a weekend.
3
The Skill Swap
Trade skills with someone outside your world. Teach a startup founder to negotiate, let them teach you coding... or how to make sushi. Depth > newness.
4
The Giver's Upgrade
Instead of upgrading yourself, upgrade someone else's experience with your resources. Their joy multiplies yours.
5
The Memory Investment
Spend money on an adventure or activity that you'll talk about forever, not just another possession. Stories appreciate, objects depreciate.
Happiness Set Point
1
The Peak-State Anchor
Recall your happiest memory. Choose a physical gesture (clap, fist pump). Rehearse until the gesture triggers the memory state. Anchor = portable happiness. Or, whenever something positive happens in your life, create the physical gesture at that time... even a happy dance will do... anything that you can repeat in the future to trigger the feeling you were having when you first created the gesture. It's science, it works.
2
Become a 'happiness' expert
Read books about happiness (my favorite is 'Happier' by Tal Ben-Shahar), and master their contents. Over time you CAN raise your happiness set point. It just takes practice.
3
The Altruism Hack
Do one meaningful act of generosity without being discovered. Anonymous giving boosts serotonin and oxytocin levels. Notice how fulfilling it can be under the right circumstances.
4
The Flow Hunt
Identify one activity where you lose track of time (surfing, coding, playing). Schedule it weekly. Flow resets your baseline higher. *Flow is the state you're in when you are doing something for which you have a natural aptitude, that you deeply enjoy, and that requires stretching beyond your comfort zone.
5
The Laugh Attack
Curate a playlist of comedy clips that always make you belly laugh. Use it strategically when your set point dips. Laughter neurochemically spikes dopamine + endorphins. And SMILE! Smiling also releases endorphins.
The Law of Diminishing Returns
More, more, more...
Simplified:
Your first $10M changes everything. The jump from $100M to $1B? Barely moves the needle. Each new dollar buys less additional happiness than the last. 'My cup runneth over' aptly describes what happens after a certain amount of anything... once your shot glass is full you can keep on pouring in the Patrone, but it won't make a difference... a bucket of water could save someone's life but dump it in the ocean and... nothing.
Applied:
Your private chef doesn't make food taste 100x better than a Michelin star. The Gulfstream doesn't make you 100x happier than the Citation. At scale, wealth upgrades are mostly lateral moves. The curve flattens, which is why "more money" fails to deliver "more meaning." After a certain level of wealth, 'meaning' in your life MUST be derived by other means (such as mastering this material).

Clinical:
  • Economic principle: each additional unit of consumption yields progressively smaller marginal utility (Jevons, 1871).
  • Neuroscience: diminishing dopamine reward prediction error with repeated/scaled stimuli.
  • Neuroeconomics: Kahneman & Deaton (2010): happiness plateaus at ~$75K annual income (inflation-adjusted US data), though life satisfaction rises with wealth.
  • Translation: Objective gain ≠ proportional subjective benefit.
Reticular Activating System (RAS)
1
Morning Prime
Before checking emails, write 3 things you want to notice today (opportunities, kindness, beauty). Your RAS will obey (especially if you tie this into something you feel has value).
2
The Object Cue
Choose one object (watch, bracelet). Every glance = ask, "What am I noticing right now?" This primes continuous awareness and keeps you in a metacognitive state.
3
The Opportunity Tracker
Each night, log one opportunity you spotted that you wouldn't have noticed before choosing to create an 'opportunity mindset'. Reinforces programming.
4
The Reframe Drill
Take one "problem" sticky note and rewrite it as an "opportunity." Example: "Competitor stole my client" → "This is valuable evidence that we need to up our game and start serving our clients so well that NO ONE can ever take them again."
5
The Pattern Game
Pick a theme (red objects, smiles, great design). Spend 24 hours spotting it everywhere. You'll see how present your RAS is and how quickly it can shift.
Upward Social Comparison
If you can't stop comparing, the trick is to compare differently.
1
Downward Reframe
Once per day, deliberately compare yourself not to someone "ahead," but to someone earlier in the journey. I call it 'Downward Social Comparison' Write down one way you're grateful for how far you've come. (No journaling required — a quick mental snapshot is enough.)
2
Select Your Arena
Stop comparing across every possible axis. Decide which game actually matters — health, legacy, family, contribution — and consciously ignore "big jet" contests. And when you do compare, compare your strengths to other's weaknesses, not the other way around.
3
Gratitude Amplifier
During Tiger-21 style sessions, when someone shares a massive win, remind yourself to add: "That's awesome — and I'm grateful for what I have." It interrupts the envy circuit and re-routes it toward appreciation. Train yourself to revel in the good fortune of others without comparing their good fortune to yours.
4
Contribution Comparison
Instead of "Who has the biggest 'whatever'?" ask, "Who made the biggest impact this year?" Shifting the metric reshapes the comparison game.
5
Scarcity Flip
When your brain says, "They have more," respond with, "Good — they proved it's possible." Use their success as evidence that abundance exists, not proof of your inadequacy.
Homeostasis Hacking
Homeostasis is a bit more complicated than hacking The Big 7, but it is possible, to a degree. One of the most effective things you can do is regularly MIX IT UP! Get it used to change... keep it guessing.
Respect the Reset
Homeostasis is your built-in reset system. You can't stop it, but you can optimize it:
1
Sleep Like It's Sacred
  • Deep sleep (especially slow-wave sleep) restores neurotransmitter balance. Missing it is like skipping your system's nightly "reboot."
  • Hack: Set a wind-down ritual and cut screens an hour before bed.
2
Cold + Heat Contrast (and other shockers)
  • Sauna + cold plunge sessions "shock" your homeostatic systems. This forces adaptation, improving resilience and mood regulation.
  • Hack: Try one round per week. The goal being to do things that teach your homeostatic systems to get used to more extreme stimulus and change, thus reducing it's resistance to future changes to The Big 7.
3
Fasting & Feasting
  • Cycling between periods of scarcity (fasting) and abundance (feasting) keeps metabolic and neurochemical balance sharp.
  • Hack: Experiment with intermittent fasting 1–2x per week. MIX IT UP!
4
Stress & Recovery Cycles
  • Chronic stress overwhelms homeostasis. Acute stress with recovery strengthens it.
  • Hack: Schedule deliberate stressors (public speaking, HIIT workouts, cold exposure) followed by deep recovery. MIX IT UP!
5
Nature Reset
  • Natural environments recalibrate homeostatic balance in cortisol, heart rate, and mood.
  • Hack: Minimum 120 minutes/week in nature (studies show dose-response effect on mood/homeostasis). MIX IT UP!
Exercise: Rewriting your Script
The Challenge:
Identify one sticky note that causes recurring pain
("Without my wealth I don't matter").
Write its simple replacement
("I matter greatly with or without my wealth").
Collect evidence daily
by noticing every moment that supports the new belief (look for proof that you 'matter' in ways that have nothing to do with your wealth.)
Each time the old note appears
emphatically say the new phrase.

Why it works:
Your RAS begins scanning for proof of the new belief, strengthening it through 'confirmation bias'. Over time, the old neural pathway weakens from disuse, while the new one dominates.
Pro tip: Don't just replace — embellish. If the old sticky note said, "I'm not creative," don't just write, "I'm creative." Write: "I'm wildly creative, and my ideas change the game." Make it bolder than before.
From Awareness to Action
Living with Intention is the point where philosophy becomes practice. It's where sticky notes stop being a metaphor and start being the building blocks of the reality you choose to live.
Conclusion
The Extraordinary Life
Final Thoughts
Far more than 'lifestyle hacks'... these tools and insights are superpowers! Knowing what you now know is like knowing about the internet before it was invented and buying X.com like Musk did (or ANY letter for that matter). It's like being Papa Johns and accepting 10,000 bitcoins for two pizzas back in 2010. When it comes to the Meta-Skill 'taking control of the 'programs and perceptions' that have taken control of your life', you will see disproportionate returns unlike anything you've ever seen!
We've been on quite a journey together. From the myth of wealth to the glass box of perception, from sticky notes to the Big Six brain hacks, you've seen how much of your reality is not dictated by dollars, markets, or competitors... but by what's happening inside your own head.
And just like in The Wizard of Oz: You already have the power... you've had it all along!
The same mind that tricks you into believing "more is never enough" can also be trained to believe "I LOVE my life, and it's extraordinary." The same dopamine that drives you and makes you restless can be redirected into curiosity, novelty, and flow. The same sticky notes that once made you anxious or angry can be rewritten into ones that make you fearless and free.
This is the work. This is the real game. And unlike the wealth game, this one doesn't flatten at the top. It expands endlessly. Your jet can only go so fast. Your watch can only be so rare. Your net worth can only stack so many zeros. But your ability to imagine, create, explore, expand your mind, and experience awe, joy, love, meaning, purpose, passion, and peace? That's LIMITLESS.
So here's my challenge to you: Don't just read this guide. Live it. You don't have to repeat the mistakes of JP Rockefeller and the others who died with full ledgers but empty lives... as smart as they were, YOU get to be smarter and make better choices than they did... You can now stand on the shoulders of these giants... and learn from their mistakes!
Because the ultimate ROI isn't found on a balance sheet. It's found in how fully you live, how deeply you love, and how courageously you choose to play this one, wild, extraordinary game of life. It's about learning to love your life and yourself!
Self-worth is so much more valuable than Net-worth!
But knowing this isn't enough. Doing is what transforms you. So here are the commitments that move this from words on a page into wiring in your brain.
Self-Actualization
And if your goal is to become fully 'self-actualized'... it is all the more reason for mastering this material, for although wealth can buy freedom, comfort, status, and opportunity, it cannot bypass the deep psychological and existential regulators that govern human experience.
In addition to the influences we've covered that offset the power of wealth, there are other structural, psychological, and existential reasons why self-actualization cannot be reached through wealth. Including the following:
1
Wealth is Extrinsic; Self-Actualization is Intrinsic
  • Wealth is an external resource; self-actualization is an internal state.
  • The more one chases external rewards, the more one conditions fulfillment on circumstances outside their control. True self-actualization, however, emerges from autonomy, self-mastery, and alignment with inner truth.
2
The Shifting Goalpost Problem
  • With wealth, goals are inherently relative and expandable: there's always more money, higher net worth rankings, bigger yachts.
  • This guarantees perpetual dissatisfaction because the metric of success keeps shifting. Self-actualization requires stable, non-comparative benchmarks rooted in values and meaning—not numbers.
3
Identity Enmeshment
  • When self-worth becomes tied to wealth, identity collapses into financial success. That creates fragility: market volatility, economic downturns, or even peers' greater success can destabilize one's sense of self.
  • Actualization requires freedom from external markers of worth—an inner anchor that money cannot provide.
4
The Paradox of Control
  • Wealth amplifies control over external life (staff, environments, options), but often erodes internal control (patience, resilience, emotional regulation).
  • Self-actualization, by contrast, depends on inner control—the mastery of mind, meaning, and perception.
5
Isolation and Insulation
  • Wealth often insulates individuals from candid feedback, authentic relationships, and shared struggle.
  • Yet growth and self-actualization require exposure to challenge, intimacy, and accountability.
  • Surrounded by people incentivized to agree or admire, one risks echo chambers that block inner evolution.
6
Existential Emptiness
  • Wealth cannot answer the why questions: Why am I here? What's my purpose? What makes life meaningful beyond comfort?
  • Without addressing these, one lives in luxury but feels hollow. As Viktor Frankl warned, the absence of meaning produces existential vacuum no matter how favorable the conditions.
7
Fragility of Legacy
  • Wealth can build monuments, businesses, or foundations, but these are ultimately external.
  • Self-actualization is tied not to what you build outside but to who you become inside. Money can create a legacy, but not a soul.
8
Wealth Magnifies, It Doesn't Transform
  • Money is an amplifier: it makes you more of who you already are.
  • If you're unconscious, money magnifies unconsciousness (addictions, ego, fear).
  • If you're awake, it can magnify service and creativity. But the awakening itself—the shift into self-actualization—cannot be purchased; it must be cultivated.
Final Assignments
These are the commitments that will turn theory into transformation.
Assignment 1: Pick One Big Seven Hack and Master It
Choose the area you feel most "hijacked" — dopamine, habituation, hedonic adaptation, diminishing returns, happiness set point, upward comparison, or RAS. For 30 days, run the 5 exercises for that one lever. Track the shift.
Assignment 2: Rewrite 3 Sticky Notes
Pick three beliefs or stories that no longer serve you. Write the replacement notes. Place them where you'll see them daily — mirror, desk, dashboard.
Assignment 3: Run the Contrast Drill Weekly
Once a week, intentionally practice contrast — discomfort, subtraction, or radical comparison — to reset your appreciation levels.
Assignment 4: Schedule Flow Time
Put one non-negotiable block in your calendar each week for a flow activity. No wealth chasing. Just presence.
Assignment 5: Build Your "Enough" List
Write down what "enough" really means for you — in relationships, experiences, impact. Let this become your new scoreboard.
Appendix, Quick Guide, References
The Big Seven in 90 Seconds
• Dopamine — The Fuel of Ambition
Simplified: Your brain's hype-man. Rewards the chase, not the catch.
Applied: Drives entrepreneurs to take risks, innovate, and keep chasing "what's next." It's why you love the thrill of the deal but quickly get bored with the results.
Clinical: Phasic bursts from the VTA → nucleus accumbens predict rewards. Chronic overstimulation leads to dopaminergic dysregulation, receptor downregulation, and compulsive drive.
• Habituation — Why Joy Fades With Repetition
Simplified: The first flight = magic. The 50th = meh.
Applied: That new jet or villa? Amazing at first. Then your brain tags it as background noise, and it fades into "just Tuesday."
Clinical: Non-associative learning: reduced synaptic vesicle release, attenuated excitatory postsynaptic potentials. Human fMRI: decreased amygdala activation on repeated stimuli (Grill-Spector et al., 2006).
• Hedonic Adaptation — The Treadmill of Success
Simplified: Lottery win? Divorce? Within a year, you're back near baseline.
Applied: A big financial windfall feels euphoric at first, but your happiness "resets." The extraordinary becomes ordinary, keeping you restless and chasing the next high.
Clinical: Brickman et al. (1978): lottery winners and paraplegics returned near baseline within a year. Mechanism: striatal and prefrontal cortex normalization. Tied to genetic happiness set point theory.
• Law of Diminishing Returns — When "More" Isn't More
Simplified: The jump from $10M to $100M changes life. $100M to $1B? Barely moves the needle.
Applied: At some point, bigger toys don't deliver bigger joy. Your Gulfstream doesn't make you 10x happier than a Citation. Wealth upgrades flatten out.
Clinical: Economic principle: marginal utility decreases (Jevons, 1871). Neuroeconomics: Kahneman & Deaton (2010) — happiness plateaus at ~$75K income, though life satisfaction keeps rising.
• Happiness Set Point — Emotional Gravity
Simplified: Some bounce back fast, others can't hold joy. That's the set point.
Applied: You can achieve incredible things yet still feel "meh" because your brain pulls you back to its baseline. The work is to consciously "tilt" the set point upward.
Clinical: ~50% of happiness variance = genetic (Lykken & Tellegen, 1996). Twin studies confirm mood stability. Neurochemical homeostasis (serotonin, dopamine, endorphins) keeps mood hovering. Plasticity exists through practices like gratitude, reframing, and meditation.
• Upward Social Comparison — The Status Trap
Simplified: You can feel like a king in your castle — until they build a bigger one right next door. Suddenly your swimming pool feels like a puddle.
Applied: Comparing yourself upward can fuel ambition but also rob joy. UHNWIs often feel inadequate despite massive success because someone always has "more."
Clinical: Chronic upward comparison linked to anxiety, depression, reduced satisfaction among UHNW populations (Fiske, 2011). fMRI: ventral striatum suppression + amygdala hyperactivation during upward comparison (Takahashi et al., 2009).
• Reticular Activating System (RAS) — The Brain's Filter
Simplified: Buy a new car, suddenly you see it everywhere.
Applied: Your RAS filters reality based on what you believe and expect. Program it toward opportunities and gratitude, and you'll "see" more of them in your world.
Clinical: Brainstem filter processes ~11 million bits/sec → forwards ~50 to consciousness (Koch, 2004). Selective attention shaped by prefrontal cortex expectations and limbic salience tagging.
Glossary of Key Terms
Amygdala — Almond-shaped brain structure regulating fear and emotional salience.
Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) — Brain region involved in conflict monitoring, error detection, and emotional regulation.
Basal Ganglia — Cluster of nuclei linked to motivation, reward, and habit formation.
Dopaminergic Dysregulation Syndrome (DDS) — Compulsive behaviors (gambling, shopping, sex) from overstimulated dopamine pathways.
Hedonic Treadmill — Psychological trap where gains/losses fade and baseline mood returns.
Homeostasis — Body/brain's tendency to maintain stability despite external changes.
Mesolimbic Pathway — Dopamine "reward circuit" running from VTA → nucleus accumbens.
Neuroplasticity — Brain's ability to rewire neural connections through experience.
Phasic vs. Tonic Firing — Bursts of dopamine for novelty/rewards (phasic) vs. baseline steady-state firing (tonic).
Reticular Activating System (RAS) — Brainstem filter deciding what sensory input reaches conscious awareness.
Subjective Reality — The world as filtered through beliefs, perceptions, and interpretations — your "sticky notes on the glass box."
Citations & Further Reading
Foundational Studies & Classic Works
  • Brickman, P., Coates, D., & Janoff-Bulman, R. (1978). Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(8), 917–927.
  • Diener, E., Lucas, R. E., & Scollon, C. N. (2006). Beyond the hedonic treadmill: Revising the adaptation theory of well-being. American Psychologist, 61(4), 305–314.
  • Jevons, W. S. (1871). The Theory of Political Economy. London: Macmillan.
  • Kahneman, D., & Deaton, A. (2010). High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(38), 16489–16493.
  • Kandel, E. R. (2001). The molecular biology of memory storage: A dialogue between genes and synapses. Science, 294(5544), 1030–1038.
  • Koch, C. (2004). The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach. Roberts & Company Publishers.
  • Lykken, D., & Tellegen, A. (1996). Happiness is a stochastic phenomenon. Psychological Science, 7(3), 186–189.
  • Schultz, W. (1997). Dopamine neurons and their role in reward mechanisms. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 7(2), 191–197.
Neuroscience & Psychology of Happiness
  • Lyubomirsky, S., Sheldon, K. M., & Schkade, D. (2005). Pursuing happiness: The architecture of sustainable change. Review of General Psychology, 9(2), 111–131.
  • Sapolsky, R. M. (2017). Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. Penguin Press.
  • Seligman, M. E. P. (2011). Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being. Free Press.
  • Gilbert, D. (2006). Stumbling on Happiness. Vintage.
Philosophy & Thought Leaders on Reality and Mind
  • Epictetus. (c. 100 CE). The Enchiridion.
  • Lao Tzu. (4th century BCE). Tao Te Ching.
  • Plato. (c. 375 BCE). The Republic.
  • Einstein, A. (1938). The Evolution of Physics. Simon & Schuster.
  • Dalai Lama & Cutler, H. C. (1998). The Art of Happiness. Riverhead.
Advanced Resources (for the curious Tiger-21 reader)
  • Friston, K. (2010). The free-energy principle: a unified brain theory? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11(2), 127–138.
  • Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
  • McGilchrist, I. (2019). The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. Yale University Press.
Recommended Practices & Tools
Daily Practices to Rewire Your Mind
Three Wins Method
Before bed, name three meaningful wins from the day (big or small). It trains your Reticular Activating System to spot success.
Micro-Meditations
3 deep breaths before each call, meeting, or email. Low effort, high ROI on stress regulation.
Reframing Drill
When something goes "wrong," write down two alternative explanations that don't make you the victim. Hack your sticky notes in real-time.
Novelty Injection
Schedule one new activity a week (restaurant, sport, book genre). Keeps dopamine firing fresh instead of fading.
Hedonic Boost Ritual
Rotate pleasures (music, meals, workouts) instead of repeating them daily. Prevents habituation and extends joy.
Tech & Apps (Science-Backed)
  • Headspace / Waking Up → Guided meditations for strengthening metacognition.
  • Gratitude Plus → Prompts for quick gratitude snapshots (without journaling walls of text).
  • Lumosity / Elevate → Cognitive training apps for neuroplasticity.
  • WHOOP / Oura Ring → Biometric trackers to monitor recovery, HRV, and stress. Helps align physiology with psychology.
  • Forest App → A playful focus tool for ADHD/entrepreneurial minds. Grows a virtual tree while you work.
Books Worth Your Shelf Space
  • The Art of Impossible by Steven Kotler — decoding flow states for entrepreneurs.
  • Atomic Habits by James Clear — accessible framework for hacking small behaviors.
  • Deep Work by Cal Newport — practical playbook for distraction-proof productivity.
  • The Molecule of More by Lieberman & Long — dopamine's role in drive, ambition, and satisfaction.
  • Why Buddhism Is True by Robert Wright — mindfulness + evolutionary psychology = a practical approach to suffering.
Bonus Tools for the Bold
  • Cold Exposure (Ice Bath/Cold Shower) → Resets dopamine baseline by up to 250% for hours (Huberman Lab).
  • VR Simulations → Controlled "sticky note" experiments. Use to test fears (public speaking, heights) in safe environments.
  • Neurofeedback Clinics → Direct brain training to enhance focus, calm, and cognitive flexibility