Hey Reader,

It's Jeff Finley here. It's been another productive week. Recorded and posted another podcast episode (that makes 9 total) and spent a few solid days working through the Page Building 101 course as I brush up on my web design skills. It's honestly inspiring me to think I should start offering web design services to clients. If this interests you, hit me up and maybe we can do something at a reduced rate while I learn.

Since the past two newsletters focused a lot on the techy side of things, I'll switch gears and talk about something a bit different.

Let's Get Mystical

I picked up the audiobook The Human Mind Owner's Manual: Your Connection to the Universe, Consciousness, and Nonhuman Intelligence by Sean Webb. Sean was actually my first introduction to spirituality back in 2013 with his I AM Spirituality Podcast.

I distinctly remember my aversion to the term spirituality back then. As an agnostic and former Christian, I was weary and skeptical of anything spiritual. But Sean's podcast inspired me to reconsider. What drew me in was his theory on how emotions work. He was a guest on the Smart Passive Income podcast on June 6, 2013 (which happened to also be my 31st birthday).

I appreciated how "logical and rational" he was instead of airy fairy. He developed his own model of the body, mind and spirit as well as his famous equation of emotion.

I wrote about this in my overcoming depression series on my then brand new blog Maker/Mistaker. Here's what I said about Sean:

While you can't find much of that podcast online anymore, he does have a few choice episodes on his current YouTube channel entitled Mind Hacking Happiness. His second episode True Self, False Self gets into the most fundamental question, "who am I?"

True Self, False Self

This was when the seed was planted for my eventual spiritual awakening. At this point I was devouring any and all content I could get on the subject. In fact, thanks to Sean and his "free audiobook" affiliate link to Audible, I became an member and picked up Richard Rohr's audio lecture by the same name, True Self, False Self. I've since enjoyed hundreds of audiobooks over the last decade.

It was because of Sean that I first learned about Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now, and Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. I got much more interested in meditation thanks to Sean, and picked up Mindfulness in Plain English on his recommendation.

Honestly, his podcast was my gateway into the vast world of spirituality. He got me to change my mind on what I thought spirituality was and felt like it was my higher self or God speaking to me in ways I could understand.

While he's gone on to write more books and podcasts, I eventually moved on from his teaching and onto other stuff. He's perfect for beginners or newbies to this material because of his casual logical style and sense of humor.

So I'm enjoying his latest book and revisiting his material a decade later. While I don't know if I agree with everything he says, I still think he's got quite an interesting approach to the mind and how to manage emotions.

If I had any criticisms of him, it's that he sometimes comes off as a bit arrogant and pompous. For someone that has achieved enlightenment, as he claims, he seems to have quite the ego. I remember reading his Mind Hacking Happiness books a few years back and had this thought. So did others in the reviews.

Sean comments on his teaching style on his current website:

I highly doubt he has "perfect calm" within. Or that he's "overcome his ego" with such certainty. But to each their own. His style is a welcome change of pace in spiritual-audiobook-land and makes for an entertaining, personal, listen. It's very informal and not so serious on what can be a serious subject.

The other part of Sean that I find a little sus, is that he's always been connected to the military and Silicon Valley tech companies. Taking his understanding of emotion and spirituality and applying it to artificial intelligence so that AI can become more human-like. And his technology can also be used to predict, engineer, and manipulate the emotions of human beings on mass scale.

From his website:

So make of that what you will. Sean starts off his book addressing how he built his algorithms with the best of intentions but became aware of bad actors who want to use it for nefarious purposes. So there's that.

That's about all I've got say on the subject for now.

What Else I've Been Up To

Watching: Baby Reindeer on Netflix. Dang this was good. I've never seen trauma and CPTSD depicted so well on TV.

Doing: Cara and I went to this free "try mountain biking" event near where we live. I haven't been on a bicycle in years so it was cool to get out there and try something different. We did the beginner course and will probably do it again next month!

Music Making: I actually am recording my own vocals for a track I'm working on. I always told myself I wasn't a good singer and didn't like my voice, but after remastering and releasing an old (2005) BOXOMYLK album full of my own vocals, I got used to hearing my own voice. Sometimes it's just easier to do it myself. I sound like what I sound like, and I it's not nice to hate on myself. So yeah...

That's all for this week. Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

Talk soon ✌️

Jeff

The Official Newsletter of Jeff Finley
​Designer, Author, Mystic

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