The inspiration to coach using Tai Lopez’s 67 steps came from one of my all time favorite books, the Neal Stephenson novel, Diamond Age.
In that novel, science fiction, far in the future, a scientist puts together an interactive book, a primer, for a rich and influential client’s grand daughter. And then he steals it… meaning: duplicates it without permission.
He means to give it to his daughter, but accidentally it goes to a very young, very poor, very disadvantaged girl, Nell.
Nell grows into a veritable person and a hero as a result of interacting with the book.
It is not what she learned from the book that made her a person, by the way. It is the constant redirecting the book provided. Getting to know herself. Minding her job as a person… not worrying about others’ opinion of her, or what she is doing, of what one is supposed to do.
And the same is with the 67 steps coaching: the 67 steps coaching is the primer… and I am the one redirecting you. In the primer it was a disembodied voice…
And just like in the novel, the more posh your life is, the less you think you need redirection, and the less I can do for you. The two posh girls had a totally different, less amazing life as a result… even though both became different than they would have been had they not had the book. But the “disembodied” voice matters a lot… and that disembodied voice, in my coaching program, is me. I guide you to personhood, to humility, to activities that are scary to you.
Neal Stephenson is my favorite novelist. He is a lot like me: if one person truly gets what he is teaching and runs with it, he did what he came to do. I doubt that there is another one like me who takes the torch and light others up with it.
He did that in every book he wrote. My other favorite is The Cobweb. But ultimately each of his books shows that there is nothing else but the individual who decides that he or she can… Can go for the truth, for what is right, for justice, for beauty, for Life.
His writing has the layer that titillates the uneducated, unconscious, and has the layer that titillates me. The conscious one.
Just like my teaching.
And just like the primer causes miraculous growth for little Nell and the quarter of a million discarded Chinese infants, the more disadvantaged you are the more it works for you.
Being disadvantaged is how you see yourself and your life.
I was disadvantaged, and I carefully maintain that state. I think that once one takes life for granted, one stops being receptive to guidance.
I enjoy growth, I enjoy winning in the face of incredible odds. Winning as in win today, with tomorrow… Not as “I want to be able to make it so I don’t have to do anything any more…” like many of you.
And not like: I want to experience growth while I am not working on growing…
Unlimited growth.
As I am writing it, I am experiencing fear. Good. I am still human… lol.
Now, given that I live in the United States, where most people have forgotten what it is like to struggle for survival, most of you are “posh” and un-guidable… because you are fine.
You are fine.
“the difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent.
The difference between stupid and intelligent people—and this is true whether or not they are well-educated—is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations—in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.”
When I started to grow I was not fine.
I am not fine now.
I don’t ever want to be fine.
Fine means dead.
No, thank you, not for me.
So…. what can you do if you are not disadvantaged, and if you are fine?
I would say you are done, but that may not be fair.
Your job is to pay attention to where and how you are not fine… Take yourself to a place where you are definitely disadvantage, and you need guidance, or you’ll remain not fine, and that is unbearable.
When I first encountered the 67 steps while I was reading the book The Diamond Age I connected the dots…
At that time I went to bed every night hoping I would not wake up in the morning. And woke up every morning disappointed that I didn’t die the night before.
Life looked grim, and I didn’t want to do that grim life any more. It looked hopeless, and my work looked fruitless.
I’d give people all I got, and got back mighty little.
And then I myself started to do the 67 steps. I did it the way Nell did the primer. And it did for me what the primer did for Nell… dislodged me out of my depression, out of my hopelessness, out of my sense of futility. Out of where life was already heading.
Armed with the 67 audios of “the guy from the diner,” I suddenly felt that I don’t have to be a Buddha, I don’t have to be a Jesus… and die having never made a difference.
Obviously only a small percentage of humans will want “the primer” and only a percentage of those will become heroes… without me having to repeat and repeat and repeat… teach and feel like a loser.
And the results are already in: this new method works better than giving all I got before.
I have more time, more energy to do my research, and you get more results, a lot more.
I thank Neal Stephenson. For my life, and potentially for your life.
I wonder if he knows.
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PS: I have read some of the reviews on the book, and felt very justified in my judgment of readers…
Here are a few links to reviews I think are worth your while to read:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/326277785
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/11214841
