Part II: The Anabolic Axioms

Question 1

1. Everything that happens to you is the best possible thing that could ever happen to you.

The heart of the omnigame

Answer 1

When you start attempting to live according to Anabolic Axiom #1, a strange thing begins to happen. All of life becomes like a game. This has hit me so profoundly that it spawned the whole “omnigame” concept and even my “Play a bigger game” tagline.
The fundamental challenge to this game is to figure out a perspective of seeing “bad” events as actually “good” and working to your benefit.
Seeing your current circumstances as good is the easiest way to tap into an anabolic resonance and all of the ease, power, pleasure, and cognitive synergy that comes from seeing yourself as winning.
Note: Since the typically undesirable events prove to be the biggest challenge to embracing anabolic optimism, this is where we will put our focus. But I hope it goes without saying that you want to embrace ALREADY desirable events as gratefully as possible.

Question 2

1. Everything that happens to you is the best possible thing that could ever happen to you.

Greatest obstacle

Answer 2

that your greatest obstacle to accomplishing this is the inevitability of pain. Pain, by it’s very nature is undesirable. How could something so intrinsically undesirable yet so pervasive be embraced as good?
Perhaps you can think of a few examples where pain is useful, but what about ALL pain? If we can construct a framework that would allow you to turn ALL pain to your benefit… what would happen? Answer: You’d become psychologically invincible and be acting at your anabolic potential.
Now I can’t claim that I’m anywhere close to that level as there is a near infinite skill ceiling to this game, but even journeyman level ability here unlocks an entire universe of possibility.

Question 3

1. Everything that happens to you is the best possible thing that could ever happen to you.

How to get started?

Answer 3

So to get started with this, you must simply begin asking yourself how you could view every event that comes up as the best possible thing that could ever happen to you.

Question 4

1. Everything that happens to you is the best possible thing that could ever happen to you.

Psychomagnetic tool of anabolic resonance

Answer 4

As you internalize the perspective that every moment is a perfect gift, then you will be filled with the anabolic resonance of gratitude, peace, joy, and the crown jewel - passion. You can see the increase of these in your life as signs of progress.
These aren’t just nice things to feel, they are also perfect psychomagnetic tools. What you resonate with, you attract more of:
When you resonate with gratitude, you get more things to be grateful for.
When you resonate with peace, your peace becomes more comprehensive and indomitable.
When you resonate with joy, your enjoyment of life becomes brighter, more radiant, and infectious.
And finally, when you radiate with passion and perpetually attract more of it, you’ve fully embraced the JOURNEY OF BECOMING which allows you to live a life of constant growth and embrace every moment to it’s fullest.

Question 5

What is the purpose of all other axioms (2-7)

Answer 5

In order to supercharge your journey here, the following axioms contain the secrets I’ve uncovered over the years to help you succeed in embracing Axiom #1 and take your psychomagnetic power to the next level.

Works like a pyramide, every level bellow supporting previous level with AA1 on top

Question 6

What is AA2?

Answer 6

2. If you don’t get what you want, you’re getting something better.

Question 7

First 2. If you don’t get what you want, you’re getting something better.

What can help you?

Answer 7

This is where the second axiom I refer to as the “winner’s rule” comes into play: “If you don’t get what you want, you’re getting something better.”
This is the most optimistic perspective you could take in the face of not getting what you specifically were hoping for. When embraced as a mindset axiom, it allows you to stay in the anabolic game when life throws you a curveball.
The big challenge to embracing this perspective is that it’s often not immediately obvious the WAY in which you’re actually getting something better. At first, all you can see is that you’re getting something you don’t want and have to wade through the catabolic emotional reactions that come up automatically.
In order to overcome this challenge, we must utilize humankind’s most potent superpower: creativity. You must use your creative faculty to imagine the ways that what you’re experiencing can work phenomenally in your favor.
When you can come up with a believable narrative where you’re actually winning rather than losing, you can shift into anabolic resonance

Question 8

AA2. If you don’t get what you want, you’re getting something better.

What is the hero’s journey

Answer 8

One of the most powerful ways to increase your ability to follow the winner’s rule is to familiarize yourself with the concept of the “hero’s journey”. This is the typical path of character development that almost all the heroes of our greatest stories go through. More than that though, it’s the psychological pattern of human evolution.

Trial —> Growth —> Triumph —> Repeat
The hero faces some kind of trial. This trial IS a trial because the hero is currently not powerful enough to render the circumstances trivial. This trial creates hardship and consternation for the hero.
But in the face of this difficulty, the hero leans in (at least eventually) and GROWS from the struggle and becomes stronger. This strength ultimately enables the hero to overcome the challenge and win the day.
The process then repeats in the “sequel” with a new challenge and a new kind of growth (that is, if the sequel wants a chance of being compelling).

Question 9

AA2. If you don’t get what you want, you’re getting something better.

Hero journey and challenge (Short answer)

Answer 9

The most important thing here is that challenge is a NECESSARY part of the hero’s journey. If there’s nothing to overcome, the hero doesn’t grow (and never actually becomes the hero). If there is no obstacle, there is no evolution.

Question 10

AA2. If you don’t get what you want, you’re getting something better.

If I were to ask you what the most valuable lessons you’ve learned were,?

Answer 10

there’s a high probability that those lessons came at a steep price. At the time, you probably viewed those situations as disasters. If you’ve grown from them as the hero does, then you can look back on them now from a position of strength and possibly even gratitude (depending on how anabolic you can go).
So for example, I was a porn and sex addict. Dealing with this at the time was monstrously difficult. However, in overcoming that challenge I learned an absurd amount about the inner workings of the human psyche, built a successful business, and have helped a tremendous number of people who struggled with the same things. All that would not have been possible without the initial challenge.
Does this mean I view porn and sex addiction as good? No, of course not. Did I want to deal with the pain of the addiction and eventually the pain of recovery? Hell no. But I do see that by choosing the anabolic path in that scenario, I could turn all that darkness into an even greater light and am ultimately much better off by having gone through that journey.

Question 11

AA2. If you don’t get what you want, you’re getting something better.

How to implement

Answer 11

So next time you feel like you’re losing, ask yourself: “How does this plot point serve to develop me as the hero of my own story?” or, if you’re a gamer, “How does this challenge offer me the chance to level up?”. You might not be winning by getting exactly what you want, but you’re getting something even better with the opportunity to evolve.

Question 12

What is AA3

Answer 12

3. Pain is just power wrapped in a puzzle.

Question 13

What will hinder your ability toembrace AA2 and what’s the solution

Answer 13

Sounds nice, but how the heck are you supposed to think this way when you are suffering through something downright painful? It’s one thing to watch your favorite fictional hero take the hits in a movie, but if you accept you’re the hero of your own life then YOU will be the one getting hit.
The challenge is that if you want to follow the axioms you’ll need to figure out how to see any pain you experience as good and useful. This is the exact opposite of the way we tend to view pain.

We use AA3
So for the anabolic optimist, pain becomes a mindset puzzle - where you must figure out how the pain you are experiencing can work for you rather than against you.

Question 14

Why does AA3 3. Pain is just power wrapped in a puzzle. feel counter/weird

Answer 14

This goes against our default conditioning to reflexively reject and avoid pain. While understandable, reactively running away from pain and toward pleasure does NOT lead to a good life. Living in this simple pleasure seeking binary often gets you caught chasing short term pleasures while your life stagnates or outright goes up in flames.
So when you experience pain, the question becomes “how can this pain work for me?”

Question 15

AA3 3. Pain is just power wrapped in a puzzle.

Explain Pain as Power and Passion

Answer 15

In order to reliably solve this puzzle, you need to begin looking at pain as a source of POWER. Pain is just energy. Depending on the psychomagnetic circuit (mindset) you’re resonating with, pain can drive you toward your goals, or break you down.
While it’s ultimately the same mechanisms when you trace it all the way down, there are three general ways you can see pain functioning as a form of beneficial power. Pain functions as a currency, as motivation, and as meaning.
When you understand these perspectives, pain is not something to be afraid of, it is something you can understand as the doorway to passion.
Passion is the process of meaningful sacrifice. When someone lives passionately it means that they are living in a way where they are sacrificing the lesser in pursuit of the greater. This can only happen with an anabolic relationship with pain.

Question 16

AA3 3. Pain is just power wrapped in a puzzle.

What is passion

Answer 16

Passion is the process of meaningful sacrifice. When someone lives passionately it means that they are living in a way where they are sacrificing the lesser in pursuit of the greater. This can only happen with an anabolic relationship with pain.

Question 17

AA3 3. Pain is just power wrapped in a puzzle.

Pain as currency

Answer 17

We all know that pain is currency, it’s literally how the economy works: You get paid money for engaging in useful pain (labor). You can then trade that money, which is a store of that pain, for the fruits of other people’s pain. But pain as a currency goes beyond mere financial transactions.
Intelligent practice of discipline is the ultimate human superpower. By practicing discipline in your morals, productivity, self-development, etc, you maximize your chances of getting what you want out of life.
But what exactly IS discipline? It’s a trade. When practiced intelligently, discipline is the act of trading some discomfort in the moment for a greater return on pleasure over time. From this perspective then, you can view pain as a currency that when spent wisely, unlocks your ability to get most things worth having.

Looking at pain in this way can help you step out of emotional reactivity around it and begin taking a more objective and beneficial steps when dealing with struggle. But furthermore it helps you realize that passionate living is the result of constantly making meaningful and compelling trades with your comfort.

Question 18

AA3 3. Pain is just power wrapped in a puzzle.

Discipline

Answer 18

But what exactly IS discipline? It’s a trade. When practiced intelligently, discipline is the act of trading some discomfort in the moment for a greater return on pleasure over time. From this perspective then, you can view pain as a currency that when spent wisely, unlocks your ability to get most things worth having.

Question 19

AA3 3. Pain is just power wrapped in a puzzle.

Discipline and car example

Answer 19

So for example, when you are trying to build a habit, it’s similar to taking out a loan to buy a car.
• How expensive the car is represents how hard the habit is to build
• The principle amount you’re able to put down on the car represents how much discipline you’ve already developed as a person
• The monthly payments represent the trade of comfort you need to engage in for each repetition of the habit
• Paying the car off means that you’ve traded enough comfort (i.e. forced enough psychological adaptation) to internalize the habit and make it second nature

Question 20

AA3 3. Pain is just power wrapped in a puzzle.

Pain as motivation

Answer 20

Pain and pleasure are the two poles of the psychomagnetic circuit. Pain pushes, pleasure pulls. When you get pain pushing you away from bad things and pleasure pulling you toward good things, you’ll take off almost effortlessly like a rocket.
Now, when those circuits get crossed and pleasure pulls you to something bad, or pain scares you from something good, you have a problem (more on that below). But there is a very straightforward way to use pain to anabolic ends:
When you are afraid/worried/or resistant to something bad happen, embrace that painful stress as fuel to take productive action.
So for example, let’s say you just got laid off from your job. This will likely fill you with the pain of financial anxiety. You can view this stress as EXACTLY what you need. Your
brain is basically saying “hey, we need to get a new job, here’s some energy (in the form of stress) you can use to bang out a new resume and fire off some job applications.”

The problem is that you will not be able to use this stress as fuel if you REJECT it. If you just try to escape the pain with drugs, alcohol, porn, TV, videogames, etc., you’ll actually cut yourself off from its motivational power.

Question 21

AA3 3. Pain is just power wrapped in a puzzle.

Pain as motivation, problem pain pleasure crossed

Answer 21

Now, when those circuits get crossed and pleasure pulls you to something bad, or pain scares you from something good, you have a problem (more on that below). But there is a very straightforward way to use pain to anabolic ends:
When you are afraid/worried/or resistant to something bad happen, embrace that painful stress as fuel to take productive action.

Question 22

AA3 3. Pain is just power wrapped in a puzzle.

Pain as motivation a necessary trigger (muscle growth)

Answer 22

Taken to a deeper level, I believe the pain of stress actually acts as a prerequisite trigger to facilitate certain neurological changes. Similar to how a muscle needs stress to grow, your brain needs either pain or pleasure to drive changes. By learning how to voluntarily embrace pain as a change agent unlocks whole new levels of self-determination compared to those who only know how to chase pleasure.

Additionally, using stress as fuel requires both skill and strength. The less you’ve done it, the worse you’ll be at it at first. As you do more reps of converting stress into action, the more comfortably and efficiently you’ll do it until it can actually start feeling GOOD!
It’s similar to how when you first start lifting weights, your form will be bad, it will be very uncomfortable, and you won’t be able to lift much weight. But as you get your reps in, you’ll get stringer, more stable, and likely even come to ENJOY it.

Question 23

AA3 3. Pain is just power wrapped in a puzzle.

Pain as Meaning

Answer 23

Pain as Meaning
Finally, pain serves a gateway to meaning. There is no feeling of triumph if there was never challenge. There is no climax if there was no ache of longing. There is no love if there is no sacrifice.

When you learn how to wield the meaningful power of pain, it allows you to generate significance where before there was just tragedy.

Question 24

AA3 3. Pain is just power wrapped in a puzzle.

Pain as Meaning example love one dying and headache drinking

Answer 24

So for example, let’s say a loved one dies. No doubt this will thrust you into deep emotional pain. You can however reframe that pain as a method to generate gratitude and appreciation for that person. You could use that pain to drive you to honor their memory by living in a way they would respect and admire. You could use that pain to drive you to appreciate the people you still have around you.
For another example, imagine you have a headache. If that headache is brought on by a night of drinking, you can use that pain as motivation to avoid doing that again. If there is no clear reason for that headache (like the migraines I get), you can use that pain to help you grow in your ability to practice positivity and self-care in the face of discomfort (a skill of unbelievable value).

Question 25

AA3 3. Pain is just power wrapped in a puzzle.

What is the result of embracing AA3

Answer 25

*The practical result of axiom #3 is to find your way out of suffering. Suffering is a state where you are rejecting your current circumstances (usually painful ones) as bad.
Rejecting your current experiences as bad is not a recommended practice because this mental negativity effectively adds an EXTRA layer of psychological pain on top of any other discomfort you’re already facing. On top of this, suffering triggers a catabolic resonance which is likely to just attract MORE suffering.
They say pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. This is true ONLY if you know how to solve your pain puzzles. If you can find value, meaning, or motivation from your current pains, then you can stop rejecting those experiences and subsequently shed the thorny catabolic blanket of suffering.

Question 26

What’s AA4?

Answer 26

Every game is winnable if you play big enough.

Question 27

AA4 Every game is winnable if you play big enough.

Why is this axiom there

Answer 27

In the last axiom we talked about how you can turn pain into power if you can solve the mindset puzzle of figuring out how to see the pain as working for you. As you practice this, you’ll eventually run into what seem to be unsolvable pain puzzles where you can’t help but fall into suffering and either rage against your current circumstances or feel hopelessly defeated.
If you find yourself in this situation, it’s likely a result of what I call “playing small.” When you are playing small, you are entered into the omnigame with a fixed and rigid mindset. If you are locked into a narrow and limiting perspective then you will often find progress blocked. If you wish to keep winning then the omnigame will often ask you to level up and expand your life and view of the world.

Question 28

AA4 Every game is winnable if you play big enough.

Ways we play small? And solution

Answer 28

• Fixed Goals
  • Fixed Expectations
  • Fixed Beliefs
  • Fixed Identity

Solution play a bigger game

Question 29

AA4 Every game is winnable if you play big enough.

Fixed goals

Answer 29

In the case of fixed goals, it’s pretty straight forward to see how they can get you stuck with an unsolvable pain puzzle. A fixed goal means that you have your eyes set on one specific outcome and pursue it without flexibility.
So for instance, let’s say you’re gunning to get a promotion at your next performance review. Now let’s say that when the review comes, you don’t get the promotion. From a fixed goal perspective, there’s no way to see yourself as “winning”. You didn’t get the thing you fixed your sights on so you lost.

Question 30

AA4 Every game is winnable if you play big enough.

Fixed goals : example promotion

Answer 30

let’s say you’re gunning to get a promotion at your next performance review. Now let’s say that when the review comes, you don’t get the promotion. From a fixed goal perspective, there’s no way to see yourself as “winning”. You didn’t get the thing you fixed your sights on so you lost.
If you keep hanging on to the mentality of “I want THIS promotion at THIS time” then there’s no way to walk away from that failure without FEELING like a failure. Beyond that bitter pill, you will walk away with an unsolvable pain puzzle of frustration, disappointment, and maybe some anger and anxiety which can all easily turn into a catabolic spiral.

However, if we play a bigger game here, we can absolutely find a way in which this situation serves you. Here are just a few perspectives to illustrate this:
• If you think you deserved the promotion, you can see this as a perfect wake up call that you are not being properly being valued and take this as an opportunity to start looking for a better company to work for.
• If you know your work slipped due to lack of discipline, you can use this pain to fuel you to improve your efforts so that you can have your work reflect the quality that best represents your dignity.
• Maybe you’ve been working super hard but use this as a realization that there’s more to your life than making a bit more money. You could use this as a spark to put less emphasis on your career because there are more important things in your personal and family life you should be focusing on at this moment.
• Finally, perhaps maybe you take take the upset you feel as a sign that you might be identifying with your career too much and use this as inspiration to learn how to focus on living in a way where you generate your own affirmation rather than relying on external validation to find peace.

Question 31

AA4 Every game is winnable if you play big enough.

Fixed expectations

Answer 31

Fixed expectations are similar to fixed goals, but rather than getting unhelpfully attached to the outcome, you become unhelpfully attached to your expectation of the journey.
Fixed expectations are when you get attached to the idea that the path forward will look the way you want it to. You get stuck in an unsolvable pain puzzle if you remain attached to that expectation when reality decides to go a different way.

There can be a temptation to just sort of throw a temper tantrum and refuse to adapt to the facts. This helps no one and just creates suffering.

Either way - you can’t just bury your head in the sand, you must adjust according to the facts in front of you or else you’ll do the opposite of level up in life.

Question 32

AA4 Every game is winnable if you play big enough.

Fixed expectations example promotion

Answer 32

So for example, let’s say you want to get this promotion and are initially told that you can do it if you just keep up the work you’ve been doing. You think “okay, yeah that’s easy enough!” and start getting pumped on the idea of achieving your goal.
However, imagine that part way through the quarter your boss lets you know that the business landscape has changed and now you are going to have to successfully handle an additional set of responsibilities if you want that promotion.
If you just keep thinking about “I was only supposed to have to do X amount of work, but now I have to do so much more! This isn’t fair! Wahh!

The key to these situations is to simply take the truth in and play a bigger game. In the case of the promotion, the bigger game means either leveling up your efforts OR finding some better use for your energy than pursuing the promotion in the way your boss has defined things.