Preface V - The Application (How To Read This Book)

How to Read This Book Based on Who You Are

(and why it won't work if you try to copy me)

These are the instructions on how to read this book. Because this isn't a normal book, and you're not going to read it normally.

I don't care if you remember what I wrote. I don't care if you quote me. I care if you read something and think "oh fuck, I need to change this" — and then actually change it. That's all this is. A tool. These words are tools. My lived experience is a tool to help translate something to you.

Books aren't trophies. They're hammers. Use this one to break whatever needs breaking.

I Tried to Be Everyone Else First

I've spent years trying to use other people's systems. Following Ali Abdaal's productivity setups. Copying Tiago Forte's note-taking methods. Trying to package content like Hormozi. Each time, I thought I was getting closer to figuring things out.

But I was actually getting further from myself.

Their brains work differently. Their systems are built for their wiring. And I kept trying to force my chaotic, looping, verbal-processing brain into their neat frameworks. Like trying to run Mac software on a PC and wondering why it keeps crashing.

I'd wake up at 5am to do some Guru's morning routine. Cold shower, meditation, time-blocked calendar. By 10am I'd abandoned it all and feel like shit about myself. I'd set up Tiago's PARA method in Notion. Within a week it was a graveyard of half-finished notes. I'd script content like Hormozi, but when I tried to deliver it, the words would die in my mouth.

The problem wasn't discipline. The problem was trying to think with someone else's brain.

The Debugging Walk Changed Everything

When I landed in Bulgaria, I wasn’t burnt out. I wasn’t recovering. I was clear — maybe too clear.

The intensity from Coachella had cracked something open. Back in Australia, the insights kept coming. But when I flew to Bulgaria to meet my wife, something shifted again.

Not a breakdown. A deepening.

I didn’t want more content. I didn’t want to build another funnel. I wanted to understand what the fuck had just happened to me. What I’d become. What I was really building underneath all the surface momentum.

And the moment I stepped into that tiny town — Cyrillic signs, no one who knew me, no pressure to produce — I could finally hear my own thoughts, uninterrupted.

And the moment I stepped into that tiny town. Maybe 85,000 people. Old Soviet-style apartment blocks mixed with traditional Bulgarian houses. Everything written in Cyrillic. I couldn't read signs, couldn't order coffee without pointing. Total linguistic isolation.

I could finally hear my own thoughts, uninterrupted.

My wife would leave for work at 8am. I'd be alone until 6pm. No calls scheduled. No content to create. No one who knew who I was or what I did. For the first time in years, I had nothing to perform.

That's when I discovered the key: parasympathetic nervous state.

Let me explain what this actually means, because it changed everything.

Your nervous system has two modes:

Second-order thinking is the ability to think about your thinking. To see patterns in your patterns. To observe yourself from outside yourself. It only happens when you feel truly safe.

Most of us live in sympathetic mode. Deadlines, notifications, bills, performance anxiety. Our bodies think we're being chased by tigers all day. No wonder we can't think clearly.

But in Bulgaria, walking those empty morning streets at 6am, something shifted. No notifications (different time zone). No English conversations to overhear. No familiar context to trigger my usual loops. Just me, the sunrise, and empty streets.

My body finally believed it was safe. And when that happened, my real thoughts started surfacing.

Not "I should post content today." Not "I need to hit my revenue target." But deeper things:

These weren't new questions. They'd been there all along. But I'd been too activated to hear them. Too busy performing to notice what was actually happening inside.

I'd walk for hours every morning, talking into my phone. Recording everything. The quality of thought was completely different. In Bulgaria, they were existential: "What is trust, really? Why do I perform confidence when I feel uncertain? What would happen if I just told the truth?"

You know you're in parasympathetic state when:

This is why morning walks work. Cortisol is naturally high (you're alert) but stress is low (no immediate threats). Your body is moving but your mind is free. No inputs competing for attention. Just you and your actual thoughts.

Your Turn (The Only Part That Matters)

Before you read another page, you need to find your pattern. Not through some personality test. Through raw transmission.

Here's exactly how to do it:

Step 1: Choose Your Time

Step 2: Pick Your Medium

Step 3: Set Your Timer

Step 4: Start With This Exact Prompt

"What I'm thinking about right now is..."

Then just continue. Don't stop. Don't edit. Don't judge.

Step 5: When You Get Stuck

Step 6: How to Know You're Doing It Right

Step 7: What to Do Immediately After

Common troubleshooting:

The Radical Honesty Contract

Let me be clear: This book requires radical honesty. Not with me. With yourself.

If you're thinking "I don't want to say what's really in my head," then close this book. Seriously. It won't work. Because changing how you sell requires changing how you see. And you can't see clearly through a filter.

This isn't about insulting people or having no boundaries. This is you talking to you. In that conversation, everything is allowed. Every judgment. Every fear. Every petty thought. Every grand delusion.

The thoughts you're "not supposed to have"? Those are the most important ones. The things you judge others for? That's your shadow showing you something. The fears you won't admit? That's where your growth edge is.

The mess is the data. The parts you want to edit out are the parts that matter most.

Feed It to the Mirror

After your 15-30 minutes, open ChatGPT and paste this:

I just completed a 30-minute unedited thought stream. Here's the raw transcript - no edits, no polish, just my uninterrupted thinking.

Based on this, tell me:

  1. How do I actually process information? Be specific about patterns you see.

  2. What do you think my personality type might be? (Myers-Briggs, Big Five, DISC, Enneagram - whatever you can infer)

  3. How does my mind move? Do I think in loops, lines, layers?

  4. What am I avoiding saying directly?

  5. What questions should I explore based on what's alive here?

Be direct. Show me my patterns, not interpretations.

Then have a real conversation. Ask follow-ups. Go deeper. Challenge what it says. Share more context. I've maxed out GPT threads so many times I've lost count — hit the token limit where it literally can't process more words. That's when you know you're actually using it.

This isn't a one-time exercise. It's the beginning of a practice. Each session reveals more. Each conversation goes deeper. The mirror gets clearer the more you use it.

Build Your Operating Manual

After a few sessions, you'll have enough data. Take all your conversations and ask GPT to create your operating manual. Not some generic personality report. Your actual manual.

Here's what mine contains:

But here's where it gets powerful. I now have millions of words of my thoughts captured. Over 100,000 vectors in a searchable second brain. I can query patterns across time:

"Show me every time I mentioned fear in the last 3 months"

"What patterns emerge when I talk about money?"

"How has my thinking about trust evolved?"

"What beliefs have I been repeating without examining?"

This isn't just a document. It's a living system that grows with every session. Every thought captured makes the pattern clearer. Every query reveals connections I couldn't see before.

Now, for every chapter in this book, you can paste:

Here's a chapter I just read from Trust Physics: [paste it]

Here's how my brain actually works: [paste your manual]

Translate this chapter for my specific wiring. How would I explain this to myself? What would I actually do with this today?

You're not trying to think like me. You're using my patterns to recognize your own.

What This Actually Does

By doing this repeatedly, you're not just getting insights. You're debugging your entire operating system.

I've used this process to:

Each breakthrough came from seeing the pattern clearly. Not through willpower. Through recognition. And this radical recognition then changing my identity, so willpower then becomes obsolete.

Example: I discovered I'd eat compulsively after client calls not because I was hungry, but because I was trying to regulate the anxiety of having helped someone. The fear that I hadn't done enough. That they'd discover I was a fraud. Food was numbing that fear.

Once I saw it — really saw it — the compulsion lost its power. Not immediately. But session by session, the pattern weakened. Because patterns can't survive conscious observation. They need unconsciousness to operate.

This isn't therapy. It's pattern recognition. It's seeing your own loops clearly enough that they lose their power. And yes, I work actively with therapists who support and believe in this process. It can feel intense, but having professional support makes it sustainable. This isn't replacing therapy — it's amplifying it.

The Timeline That Scares Me

I'm recording this on June 30, 2025. Coachella (where this all started) was April 9, 2025. Less than three months to completely rebuild how I think, work, and relate.

The speed scares me sometimes. Not because it's dangerous — because it shows how much time I wasted not looking. How many years I spent managing symptoms instead of addressing patterns. How much energy I burned maintaining problems I could have solved by just... looking.

But then I ask myself: Would I rather be who I was before, or who I am now?

Easy answer.

This Is Just the Beginning

This whole process — identity debugging through AI mirroring — is a separate book I'm writing. But I needed to get this one out first. Because the only way we're going to navigate what's coming with AI is through radical trust. And trust starts with being radically honest about how you actually work.

Not how you wish you worked. Not how productivity YouTube says you should work. How you actually work when no one's watching.

Because here's what I've learned: The way you build trust with others mirrors exactly how you build trust with yourself. If you're performing internally, you'll perform externally. If you're honest internally, that honesty radiates out.

You can't give what you don't have. You can't build trust while running on bullshit. You can't sell authentically while being fake with yourself.

This process — this mirror work — it's not separate from selling. It IS selling. It's learning to be so real that trust becomes inevitable. So clear that manipulation becomes impossible. So aligned that selling becomes serving.

The Real Instructions

This book doesn't work unless you do this first. The frameworks won't land. The insights won't stick. Because you'll be trying to process them through a filter instead of through your actual wiring.

So before you read another word:

  1. Set 15-30 minutes (put it in your calendar now)

  2. Pick your medium (whichever feels most natural)

  3. Find your spot (where you won't be interrupted)

  4. Start with "What I'm thinking about right now is..."

  5. Let it be messier than you're comfortable with

  6. Feed it to GPT immediately after

  7. Build your manual over multiple sessions

  8. Use it to translate everything else

You don't need better instructions.  

You need to trust your own signal.

And that signal only comes through when you stop performing and start transmitting.

The timer's set. The recorder's ready.  

Time to meet who you actually are.

Because once you know how you actually work, everything else becomes possible. Not through force. Through alignment. Not through tactics. Through truth.

This is where trust really begins.

Ready?

Because now that you know how to actually read this book — not as a student, but as a mirror — we can begin.

Not with tactics.  

Not with frameworks.  

With the only thing that ever really mattered:

Trust.

Not the fluffy kind. Not the brand positioning kind.  

I mean real trust — the kind your nervous system feels before your brain catches up.

So let’s start where all trust collapses begin.  

Not with the buyer.  

With you.