I met Paul in the spring of 2023. He was on a journey to transform his life, and I found his unique outlook on life to be refreshing and insightful. Paul is a software engineer who found himself with crippling loneliness during COVID after a 10-year relationship breakup and a job layoff. With his partner gone, no colleagues, and no social interaction, he found himself at a crossroads in life. He decided at that moment to quit watching television and take back control of his life. He sourced a job, quit video games, and quit watching television. He discovered Meetup.com, and built a social life with multiple groups that collectively have hundreds of members now.

Paul and I started dating after some mutual friends of ours (shoutout to sneaky snakes Tim and Jen 😉🐍) set us up on a few double dates. He knows that I have a strong desire to learn the skill of interviewing, which is one of my goals for HYPRfocus. With his encouragement and support, we decided to do my first interview together.

I hope you enjoy the interview, and please like and comment if this resonated with you. I appreciate and look forward to hearing your feedback!

The Interview | Formulas for Life

As a software engineer and a Sparketype™ Essentialist, Paul is highly skilled at organizing and distilling information and data. But it doesn’t just stop there — he also organizes data and observes patterns in everyday life. By vetting hundreds of members for his Meetup.com groups, he has witnessed multiple patterns of human behavior and created formulas for life.

In this interview, we talk about the formulas for:

• becoming unperturbed in the face of judgment

• running a successful social group and vetting members

• lifestyle design for finding love

• focusing your energy and eliminating distraction

The Next 12 Months | House Hacking & Microsoft Power Platform

Paul is currently learning Microsoft Power Platform for his day job and just bought a house in May 2024. 🎉 His plan is to start house hacking (renting out some of the rooms of his house) and eventually implementing the strategy of coliving (individually renting out all the rooms of a house). You can see more of his story on his YouTube channel @TheMangineer or his website PaulDavidSantana.com.

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@TheMangineer

Website: https://pauldavidsantana.com/

Resources

1. Sparketype: https://sparketype.com/

2. The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker: https://www.priyaparker.com/book-art-of-gathering

3. Hamza Ahmed’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Hamza97

4. Build a Wealthy Spirit Podcast with Sammie and Michelle:

   Build A Wealthy Spirit Podcast

   Build A Wealthy Spirit Podcast Page

   By Michelle Elisabeth Varghese

Each time, I can’t help but go back to the same book. Not Nice by Dr. Aziz Gazipura.

I haven’t even finished the book yet (it’s a mega-chonker at almost 500 pages), but DAMN it is good. Once you make it through, you will undoubtedly have many practical tips and clarity on why you should unapologetically be yourself, assertively ask for what you want, and stop seeking approval in others. This book completely changed my life.

You’re Not for Everyone

In the book, Dr. Aziz talks about approval seeking as a “Bag of Ones”:

Your Bag of Ones was explained to me by a bright and perceptive coach I met at a conference. She explained it this way: If you were to go into a room of 100 people and say “hi” to everybody, 99 would say “hi” back and one would coldly stare you down and say, “Oh…it’s you. What are you doing here?”

Whenever we go to a new environment — a networking event, a conference, a party, a new job, or anywhere else where we’re putting ourselves out there — we imagine that one person […] that gives us that cold, negative response, and add them to our Bag of Ones.

Then we carry this bag over our shoulders, always anticipating a negative reception to everything we do. We have all the evidence we could ever need because we’re carrying around that sucker around on our backs.

What would happen if we focus our energy on the 99 people who give us positive responses instead of the one person that we can’t satisfy?

Dr. Aziz says, “The truth is, we don’t have control of whether people like us or not. The only things we have control over is how fully we show up.”

What a relief — you don’t have to please everyone around you! 😅 You just have to show up as your boldly authentic self and say, “I’m not for everyone.”

Knowing Your Boundaries

Are you scared to show up in the world as your unapologetic self? Are you trying to make everyone like you? Are you carrying around a Bag of Ones?

If so, start setting boundaries between yourself and the people around you. Ask yourself these questions to strengthen your sense of self:

1. What do I love? (like, appreciate, enjoy)

2. What do I hate? (dislike, find annoying, bothersome, irritating)

3. What do I believe? (“I believe _________”)

4. What is great about me? (strengths, positive qualities, endearing traits)

5. What is my purpose? (your goals, reason for life)

Once you do this exercise and obtain a stronger relationship with yourself, you will take back your power to be more assertive and confident. P.S. Confidence is sexy! 😉

Would you rather have:

• 99/100 people like you when you show up as the fake you; OR

• 20/100 people like you when you show up as the real you?

“You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there’s still going to be someone who hates peaches.”

- Dita Von Teese

Resources:

1. Not Nice by Dr. Aziz Gazipura: https://notnicebook.com/

You’re thinking, “No duh, Harris. Of course you take yourself with you. What’s the point?” The point is that you — YES YOU — probably have many deep, unresolved issues simmering in your soul. Are you carrying around any negative emotional vibrations? If so, THAT’S your problem. 🫵

No matter where you go, you can’t run away from that internal problem. So, let’s solve it before you carry that problem with you to the grave. 💀🪦

My Problem 🙋‍♀️

Feeling like a disappointment has been an issue I’ve dealt with my entire life. I’ve always felt like I wasn’t good enough and that I wasn’t lovable or acceptable the way I was. The problem grew into a monster of self-judgment and people pleasing as I got older. In order to feel worthy, I did what was asked of me. When my actions were questioned, I went into: DEFENSE MODE. 😡 HULK MODE. 🦖 SULK MODE. 😭 PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE MODE. 🤦‍♀️ Basically, all the modes that make me a not-so-likable person.

I noticed I would get triggered easily when someone would hold me accountable (or ask me a question about an action I took or am planning to take).

1. My 🧠 when this happens:

   “AAHHHH — I’M UNDER ATTACK!!!!! Prepare for defense!”

2. My ❤️ when this happens:

   “I’m sorry — I feel like I’m not meeting your expectations. That hurts me, because it makes me feel unworthy. When I feel hurt, I want to put up walls around my heart to protect myself.”

These emotional and physical reactions all come from deep-rooted childhood experiences. While my feelings are valid, the automatic behaviors I’ve established in response are not. So how do we fix this?

Fixing our Problems

1. Find the “why” and reframe the story 🖼️

   When you feel yourself getting upset or thrown off kilter, explore the why behind that. What's the first memory you have of feeling that way? What happened? Is it possible to reframe that situation from a different point of view that you haven't previously considered? Address your beliefs on the situation and ask yourself if those beliefs are serving you.

2. Practice responding differently in the future 💪

   Once you determine the why and reframe the story, you can practice changing your behavior with repetition. Think of it like a muscle — you can’t change your physique in one day, but you can change it with the compound effect of daily work.

   If you continue to hold beliefs that don't serve you and choose not to respond differently, those negative manifestations will continue to come up in your life to test you. I’m a firm believer in the universe will test you in your negative manifestations and conspire in your favor for positive manifestations.

So, what’s your problem? Do you have any negative beliefs about yourself or your life that are no longer serving you? 🦔🌈

Resources:

1. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman: https://a.co/d/ejEDxE2

2. Build a Wealthy Spirit Podcast with Sammie & Michelle:

   Build A Wealthy Spirit Podcast

   Build A Wealthy Spirit Podcast Page

   By Michelle Elisabeth Varghese

Is anybody perfect at anything? NO! So, why do people spend an ungodly amount of time trying to make their work flawless? 🤦‍♀️ Is perfection even attainable?

What is Perfectionism?

Perfectionism is a fear of failing, making mistakes, being judged, and not meeting people’s expectations. Put simply: we strive for perfection in order to avoid guilt or shame (guilt = I did a bad thing; shame = I am a bad person).

So what does that look like in the real world?

1. YouTubers/Podcasters: trying to make captions, lighting, and video flawless

2. Presenters: tweaking your slides with detail your audience won’t remember

3. Writers: over-editing and rewriting content

4. Software Developers: making the interface look faultless rather than focusing on basic functionality

5. Planners: making your itinerary so tight that it doesn’t allow for any spontaneity

When is your work GOOD ENOUGH? Brené Brown implores her listeners to focus on excellence over perfectionism. Perfection is all about extrinsic motivation, while excellence is all about intrinsic motivation.

Creating Excellent Work

There are two key components to mastering your craft over time:

1. Focus on Repetition

A lesson from the book Art & Fear about how quantity beats quality: 🏺

[A] ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing [his] class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.

His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”.

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

The repetition of the “quantity” group made their skills took their skills beyond that of the “quality” group. 🚨 Cliché phrase alert: Practice makes perfect! 🚨

Another example of this I loved recently was on the “How I Write” podcast with David Perell. (Shout out to Michelle from Build a Wealthy Spirit for sending this to us!) On the podcast, Shaan Puri talked about MrBeast’s advice on how to become great at YouTube, which was to:

Record 100 videos and each time, do something better than you did before.

Shaan says, “It’s the perfect advice to give someone because it’s true and [for the few people who actually do the work] it saves both of us of the hassle if you actually followed [the advice].”

2. Lower the Barrier to Entry

The second way to master your craft is to eliminate obstacles. If repetition generates quality, you must eliminate any barriers preventing the practice of your craft.

My boyfriend Paul does a great job of this with his YouTube. In order to post a video EVERY SINGLE DAY for his channel (The Mangineer) he doesn’t edit the videos. He doesn’t generate captions. He doesn’t have fancy lighting. He knows that these things will prevent him from his daily video reps. Still, his videos continue to get better every day because he’s practicing.

If you have a high barrier to entry, the likelihood of you following through is lowered.

In the book The ONE Thing, the authors talk about how the best way to tackle a long to-do list is NOT to put in more time; the solution is to eliminate some of your tasks.

Are you performing any superfluous tasks that can be eliminated to accomplish 80% of the quality in half the time?

Resources:

1. Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland: https://a.co/d/4eDIKK3

2. How I Write Podcast with David Perell and guest Shaan Puri on How to Master Storytelling:

3. Build a Wealthy Spirit Podcast with Sammie and Michelle:

   Build A Wealthy Spirit Podcast

   Build A Wealthy Spirit Podcast Page

   By Michelle Elisabeth Varghese

4. The Mangineer YouTube Channel with Paul Santana: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMangineer

I personally wasted a lot of time in relationships that didn’t serve me — one with an addict and the other with an insecure bully. Even when I got out of those relationships, I still felt like I never had time for myself. Truth is, I was making time for everyone around me instead of making time for myself. I was people pleasing and aimlessly wandering through life, and the solution was so simple. You must:

1. IDENTIFY YOUR “WHY” — YOUR PURPOSE

2. FIERCELY DEDICATE YOUR TIME AND FOCUS TO YOUR WHY

Why are you here? Is it to cure cancer, colonize another planet, make beautiful art, build a welcoming community, or write incredible stories? What drives you? Once you figure that out, make sure you’re dedicating time to accomplishing it.

Time will always be fleeting unless you take it by the reins and direct it where to go.

The Fox & The Hedgehog

There’s an old Greek parable that states, “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one BIG thing.” The fox is an agile creature with a plethora of strategies to attack prey and evade predators. He can sneak, run, jump, pounce, and play dead. On the other hand, hedgehogs are simple creatures with one central vision — to curl up into a spiky ball. Even though the fox seems to have the upper hand, the hedgehog defeats him, and the fox leaves with a tender nose full of prickly quills.

Philosopher Isaiah Berlin and author Jim Collins further expanded on the concept of the hedgehog and fox. The idea is that people can be categorized as foxes or hedgehogs: foxes are adaptable and have a variety of skills, but can also be scattered and unfocused. Alternatively, hedgehogs boast a single, simple skill that is focused and works consistently.

Are you a scattered fox or a focused hedgehog? 🦔 🌈

Resources:

1. Start With Why by Simon Sinek: https://simonsinek.com/books/start-with-why/

2. The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan: https://the1thing.com/book/

3. Big A## Calendar by Jesse Itzler: https://jesseitzler.com/products/calendar-2024

4. Death Calendar: https://www.amazon.com/LifeTimeTM-Weeks-Poster-Memento-Calendar/dp/B0C49TXX73/ref=sr_1_1_sspa

Paul and I attended a wealth-building seminar in 2023 where we met a certified hypnotherapist and life coach named Pam Greenberg. Her office is located in Mt Pleasant, South Carolina, and she specializes in hypnotism for weight loss, smoking cessation, sports performance, immune diseases and cancer, and the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).

I was fascinated as she described the power of suggestion and how we can reframe our daily lives by targeting the subconscious mind. 🧠 She used the image below to describe how we develop our subconscious beliefs as a child, when we are most suggestible. During this time, we start to learn our fears, our likes and dislikes, and what we’re capable of. We aren’t thinking for ourselves much at this time. We are simply taking in information and creating automatic behaviors based on our experiences.

Experts say that from ages 7 to 9, we start thinking for ourselves, begin to seek understanding, and question incoming information. During this time, we develop what’s called the “critical mind”, which acts a a brick wall that blocks new information from getting into our subconscious mind. In addition, we start to develop the conscious mind, which we use for decision making, reasoning, analyzing, and logic.

Since the subconscious mind takes up about 88% of our “thought power” and only 12% for our conscious mind, our subconscious has a much greater influence on our behavior. As the critical mind blocks suggestions from entering the subconscious, it’s incredibly difficult to alter your default behaviors, and you continue to make decisions based on the stronghold of your subconscious beliefs.

Therefore, if you can accept new ideas into your subconscious, you can alter your default behaviors. The idea is that hypnosis puts you in a suggestible state, and in this state you can target and reframe your subconscious beliefs. Hypnosis and affirmations can be a tool to this end.

I scheduled a session with Pam, and one of my biggest takeaways was to perform daily affirmations. I hadn’t practiced much positive self-talk in the past, so Paul and I took action based on my notes from the session. During that session, Pam asked me what I wanted to feel more of, so we built affirmations around my response.

Self-Affirmation: the act of confirming one's own worthiness and value as an individual for beneficial effect (such as increasing one's confidence or raising self-esteem)

Four Tips to Master Affirmations

Paul would wake me every morning, sweep me off my feet, and carry me into the dining room where I had a giant sticky note on the wall that read, “I, Harris Jones, am STRONG, CONFIDENT, DECISIVE, POSITIVE, and POWERFUL!” I would read this aloud to Paul every morning in a loud, firm tone multiple times. We did this for weeks, and while it felt good to instill a habit of positive self-talk, it didn’t feel authentic. I wanted to FEEL it, not just SPEAK it.

So (as one does) I dove deep into the science of affirmations. I wanted to understand how to make them more effective. The articles I read and people we talked to revealed some interesting and surprising data, so I compiled them into a list for you (we love lists!) 😉

1. Breathe 🧘‍♀️

   The saying “sleep on it” has value. When you breathe deeply, your body goes into a more relaxed, open, receptive state referred to as theta state, in which theta brainwaves are present. Theta waves are associated with the hypnotic or subconscious state between wakefulness and sleep.

   When going to sleep, practice breathwork to put yourself into theta state. As you breathe in, repeat your positive affirmations in your head. As you breathe out, release any negative thoughts you have stored for that day.

   Do the same practice as you wake up, but repeat your affirmations out loud (if your environment allows). In doing this, you are putting yourself in a suggestible state while physically “inhaling”positive thoughts and “exhaling” negative ones.

2. Process 👂

   Affirmations can be more effective if you process them through your senses. You might be familiar with the advice to visually see yourself perform mirror affirmations, which also helps cultivate self-compassion and heal your inner critic.

   Hearing your affirmations repeated back to you is also effective. Say them out loud, have a loved one repeat them back to you, or record yourself doing them and play it back for maximum effect.

3. Score 💯

   Affirmations can have adverse effects if they create cognitive dissonance. Research published in the Journal of Psychological Science concluded that “repeating positive self-statements may benefit certain people, such as individuals with high self-esteem, but backfire for the very people who need them the most.” If you don’t somewhat believe your affirmations, they can create contradictory thoughts that do more harm than good.

   To prevent inner conflict and cognitive dissonance, write your affirmations down on paper. Score each statement on a scale from 0 to 100 (where zero means you disagree with the statement completely and 100 means you believe it fully). For any affirmations scored under 50, rewrite them or discard them entirely. This will ensure that your positive affirmations are within reason, and over time their believability will increase. Practice the affirmations that scored 50 to 90.

4. Practice 💪

   Positive self-talk requires practice! Perform your affirmations in the same way you would build a habit. Eventually, you will begin to identify as a person with high self-worth because you have persistently practiced the skill of positive self-talk.

   If you do the work, you’ll discover that there are many things you already love about yourself in the areas that you value most.

Resources:

1. Pam Greenberg, C.Ht: https://www.myhypnofrog.com/

2. Breathwork and Brainwaves: https://breathmastery.com/breathwork-and-brainwaves/

3. The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/05/02/do-self-affirmations-work/

4. Journal of Psychological Science: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02370.x

5. Atomic Habits by James Clear: https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits

My name is Harris Jones 👋, and I’m passionate about intentional living. I have always struggled with people pleasing, time wasting, and crippling self-judgment. In 2023, I decided that I would no longer be a prisoner to the opinions of others (or my perception of the opinion of others). I’m now on a journey to live a radiant life with friends who focus on entrepreneurship, wellness, and self-optimization. 🚀

While I could easily tell you my whole life story, I wanted to keep this first episode focused on the PRESENT and the FUTURE. Who am I in this moment? What am I looking to achieve in life?

To that end, I've listed 10 things I'm currently obsessed with, including my desire to build communities — communities like HYPRfocus! 🦔 🌈

Paul and I have built many communities and made wonderful friendships through those communities in 2023. I can’t wait to see what how the HYPRfocus community blooms 🌸 in 2024.

If anything in this episode resonates with you, please let me know and drop a comment at https://www.hyprfocus.com/ or subscribe for future updates 💕

Resources: https://www.hyprfocus.com/resources