I believe the people who care most deeply about the world are also the ones who suffer the most from anxiety, lack of focus, difficulty sleeping and lethargy. But those very same people are also the ones we need the most.
We need people who care a lot about making the world a better place. And we need them to become calm, focused, clear-headed and as healthy as possible, so those good, honest, caring people can be the best that they can be. So they can take positions of responsibility in the world — leadership roles.
You’ve probably noticed that leadership roles tend to be occupied by the confident, ruthless and selfish people of the world. Because those personality traits also happen to be the ones that enable people to rise to the top quickly. They are confident, clear-headed, single-minded and ruthless — of course they rise to the top.
But there’s a big problem with that. It means the world is being directed by bad people — you must have noticed.
Consider this, every person you have ever met will suffer the loss of their friends and family. They’re all going to lose everything they love in the world. Why would one want to be anything but kind to them in the meantime?
Sam Harris, neuroscientist and best-selling author
A quick glance at the news at any given moment will show you that we’re not living up to this seemingly uncounterable statement of truth. We’re killing, murdering, stealing, raping, burning and polluting.
Given that we know how to make the world a better place, why don’t we do it?
The answer to that question is simple. Most of us have noble aspirations. Most of us have the best intentions. But we struggle to make them a reality.
I believe the key to helping people match their actions to their best intentions — and to create a better, happier world for everyone — is first of all to help people be calm, focused, positive and motivated, so they can actually do all the things they say they want to do in their lives. To treat each other with respect and kindness, to follow their dreams, and to make a better world.
For years I followed the work of famous scientists and successful entrepreneurs. And for years I struggled with my own anxieties and difficulty focusing my mind. In time I began to realize that all the so-called greatest minds in history, from Steve Jobs to Albert Einstein, practiced a seemingly simple technique every day. Every day they practiced some form of meditation or calmness. For Steve Jobs it was meditation based on Eastern practices he learned from a Yogi in India. For Einstein is was long meditative walks in isolation — a place that enabled his subconscious mind to flourish in calmness.
I wanted to find the calmness these great minds found daily, but my life, like most people’s, was hectic. It wasn’t easy for me to go off on my own for an hour to meditate in silence. I tried, but I failed. But I kept trying and eventually, I invented SleepOptimized, which is simply a very special format of guided meditation audio specifically designed to very quickly make your mind completely blank and calm. When you play it you’ll quickly see what I mean. It works in minutes and transforms the way you think and feel.
I used it for months and my life rapidly changed. The difference was profound. I went from being a drug addict, and an alcoholic in massive debt to being clean, sober, calm, happy, debt free, wealthy and building my dreams to make the world a better place. I realized that the leverage point at which my life changed was in my mind. The daily practice of nothingness — total blank calmness. You must practice this if you ever want to achieve anything worthwhile in your life. And I would argue that it’s incredibly important that good, caring people achieve this mental state of clarity, calmness, and focus so that we can build a better world.
Imagine a world without war, without crime, without cruelty. All of these things are choices. We live in a world where we allow bad men to become world leaders and we create societies that don’t look after their people.
We need to change this. The change starts with you: in your mind. Become the best that you can be. Don’t waste your life. Clear your mind. Become focused. Become driven. Don’t let the world be ruled by evil men. Work hard to become a leader. We need good, caring people to be clear-headed and confident so we can stand up to the tyrants of the world.
Everything changed for me the day I made the decision to start thinking clearly and calmly. I believe it’s incredibly important that we help everyone experience this because if we could do that we could create a better world for everyone.