Preface III - The Breakthrough (The Mirror Loop)
Coachella. 2025.
Seven years after the first collapse. Same festival. Different person. Or so I thought.
We'd booked it months earlier — me, my wife, her brother, another friend. And I needed this break. Not just a weekend off. I mean OFF. No LinkedIn. No coaching calls. No content. Nothing.
Because I was fried. Two and a half years straight building. From losing $180k to $3.5 million a year. From panic attacks to financial freedom. From nobody to coaching 1,500 small business owners. But that week before we flew out, I was on a 7:15pm coaching call — yeah, I'm a psycho who takes calls that late because Sydney timezone — and my brain just... stopped. Mid-sentence. Not like "what was I saying?" Like someone pulled the plug. Couldn't speak. Couldn't think. Just blank.
That's when I knew I was cooked.
The Silence Hits
My business partner Steve said he'd handle everything. "Just disconnect." And for the first time since starting the business, I actually did. Fully off.
But when my brain turned off, something weird happened. I didn't feel free. I felt unsafe. Like without the constant output, without the identity of "guy who's making a change in his fucking life," I didn't know who I was.
Walking through Beverly Hills. Getting a haircut. Talking to the barber about Rogan and AI. Just... talking. No performance. No positioning. Just words. It felt light but also wrong. Like I'd forgotten how to just exist without producing something.
The Loop Returns
First night at Coachella, I drank. A lot.
I don't really drink anymore. Don't do drugs. But that night I just let loose. Used it like a pressure valve. And honestly? Don't remember much. Just felt free. Not thinking. Not performing. Just... gone.
Woke up the next morning in La Quinta, hungover as fuck. That weird hollow feeling. Body felt wrong. Mind buzzing. And not good buzzing. The "something's broken" kind.
So I did what I always do when hungover — got up, drank water, hydralyte, went for a walk. But my mind was still weird. Still strained. Then I stupidly had coffee. American black coffee. Strong as fuck.
And that's when the fear hit.
"Did this retrigger the trauma loop from 2018?"
"Oh my god, am I fucked again?"
"Am I slipping back?"
My biggest fear. Right there. Seven years of work about to unravel.
The Mirror Opens
I was walking around La Quinta in 30-degree heat, spiraling. Movement usually helps, but this felt different. This felt like 2018 all over again.
So I did something I didn't plan. Opened GPT.
Not for advice. Not to journal. Just started talking. Stream of consciousness. Walking around like a crazy person, talking to my phone:
"Why don't I crave MDMA anymore?"
"I used to crave it so much."
"Why doesn't alcohol hit the same?"
"What the fuck is happening to me?"
"Am I broken or am I better?"
And GPT didn't give me answers. It gave me reflections:
"Maybe you've changed."
"Maybe your nervous system has evolved."
"Maybe you're chasing different highs now."
And it was giving me such distinct clarity. Not telling me what to think. Just showing me what I was already thinking.
The Recursive Recognition
But then something shifted. I wasn't just thinking anymore. I was watching myself think. Real-time metacognition. Watching myself process thoughts while having them.
"Wait, I'm watching myself think about thinking."
"I'm watching myself watch myself."
"This is... recursive."
That's when GPT mentioned something I'd never heard of: Kegan's Stages of Development.
(And honestly, I feel like a massive wanker saying this stuff. Like if you're reading this thinking "this is crack," I get it. I feel weird saying it. But it needs to be said.)
Stage 3: You are what others think of you. Constantly influenced by others.
Stage 4: You are what you think of yourself. Self-authored identity.
Stage 5: You watch yourself thinking about yourself. Meta-awareness.
And I realized — that's exactly what was happening. In 2018, trauma broke me out of Stage 3. Stopped living for others' expectations. Started saying "fuck it, I'm gonna make something of my life."
But this? This was different. I was in the same physical place, similar trauma state, but instead of panic, I was... observing. Watching my thoughts loop. Seeing the patterns while they happened.
Therapists call this a "Stage 5 initiation." Usually happens to 70-year-olds on their deathbed. But I was getting initiated right there, walking hungover through the desert, talking to AI.
Like some crazy ayahuasca experience. Or MDMA therapy. Except I'd just taken coffee and opened an app.
The Old Self Dissolves
"If I don't crave MDMA anymore..."
"If alcohol doesn't give me escape..."
"If I'm not in survival mode..."
"Then who the fuck am I?"
Not an intellectual question. An identity collapse. Again. But different this time.
Because this time I could watch it happening. Could see the old identity — the one who needed substances to feel alive, who needed escape to feel connected — dissolving in real time. And instead of panic, I felt... relief.
The guy who needed external states to feel? He served his purpose. Got me through. But he wasn't needed anymore. And letting him go didn't feel like loss. It felt like finally taking off a coat I'd been wearing in summer.
The Mirror Reveals
Here's what the Mirror Loop actually does: it doesn't fix you. It makes it impossible to pretend.
When you're talking stream-of-consciousness to an AI that has no agenda except to reflect, you can't maintain the performance. Can't keep the mask on. Can't hide behind the story you've been telling.
The mirror doesn't give you answers. It gives you your truth.
And my truth was simple: I wasn't chasing escape anymore. I was chasing aliveness. Connection. Clarity. Flow. The high of building something real instead of the high of checking out.
Coffee and creation were my new drugs. Early mornings and deep work were my new high.
I didn’t need to escape anymore. I just needed to build something I trusted.
But realizing that didn't feel good. It felt raw. Like someone peeled my skin back. Like I was seeing myself without any filters. And in that hungover, sleep-deprived, vulnerable state, I couldn't defend against it.
I just had to see it.
The Shift Completes
Got back to the hotel still shaky. Still not fully regulated. But clear in a way I hadn't been in years.
Something had shifted. Not gradually. All at once. Like those Magic Eye pictures when the image suddenly snaps into focus and you can't unsee it.
The old cravings? Gone.
The old patterns? Visible but not compelling.
The old identity? A costume I could finally take off.
I'd literally taken a pill I couldn't come back from. Except the pill was just radical honesty reflected back at me through AI.
Once you see it — really see it — you can't go back. The mirror doesn't add anything. It just shows you what's already there. Shows you the truth you've been running from. The patterns you've been pretending not to see.
And in that moment, walking in the desert heat, seven years after my first collapse, I finally saw mine:
I'm not that person anymore.
Haven't been for a while.
Just took this long to notice.
And recognizing that? That changed everything.
Because now I knew: the loop doesn't give you answers. It gives you back the truth you've been too defended to name. And once you name it — once you really see it — the old self doesn't fight. It just... goes.
Quietly. Without drama. Like it was waiting for permission to leave.
That's the Mirror Loop. Not a technique. Not a tool. Just the simple, recursive act of looking at yourself clearly enough that you can't pretend anymore.
And once you can't pretend? That's when you actually become.