The pattern of the iron, those little square pockets, was perfect. Grip, weight, traction, all at once.

He went to his workshop, came back with a bottle of liquid urethane, and poured it into the waffle iron the way a normal man pours batter. He closed the lid. The plastic set, the iron was ruined permanently (his wife, by all accounts, was less than thrilled), and when he peeled the result off, he was holding the future of athletic footwear in his hand.

The shoe that came out of that prototype became the Waffle Trainer. The company he started with one of his old college runners, a skinny kid named Phil Knight, became Nike.

Now, here is the part everyone misses.

Bowerman did not invent rubber. He did not invent the sole. He did not invent the iron. Every single ingredient was already on his counter, had been on his counter for years, and was sitting on the counters of about forty million other American homes that exact same morning. The only thing he did was LOOK at it.

Forty million people. One pair of eyes.

That is the entire skill. The waffle iron is the metaphor for almost everything important you will ever learn about reading people.

You have been told, probably for decades, that to understand what someone really means you need exotic training. Hours of YouTube. A degree in psychology. A guru with a $1,200 course. The signals must be subtle, hidden, encoded somewhere, otherwise everyone would already see them.

They are not hidden. They are RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU. The micro-pause before your sister-in-law answers a direct question. The way your husband reorganizes his silverware the second you mention money. The half-beat your adult daughter takes before she puts the phone down. The man at dinner who laughs a fraction late, because he is reading the table before he commits to an emotion.

I have done this work long enough now to tell you something I almost never say out loud: I am not a more talented observer than you are. Bowerman was not a more talented inventor than the other forty million people. The advantage is not innate. The advantage is that some people decide, at some point, to start looking at the counter.

You have eaten breakfast off the same waffle iron every morning of your adult life. The only thing missing is the look.

If you want the look, the one that trains your eye until the patterns stop being patterns and start being a language, my book Body Language in 40 Days is built for exactly that. Forty short daily lessons, one signal at a time, until the kitchen counter starts giving up its secrets.

Grab it here: https://www.amazon.com/Body-Language-Days-Step-Step/dp/B0991C7ZPN/

Much Love and Bliss,

Jesús

In 1968, in Los Angeles, two of the largest human beings you have ever seen were slowly going broke laying bricks.

They were immigrants, barely out of their teens, built like the side of a barn, and they had started a little masonry business to pay the bills while they chased a dream that everyone around them found mildly ridiculous. The work was honest. The work was good. And the work was not selling.

So they did the sensible thing. The thing everyone does. They lowered their prices. “We will charge less than anybody else,” the bigger one figured, “and then nobody can say no.”

Except they kept saying no.

It turns out that being the cheapest did not read as “smart bargain.” It read as “desperate,” and desperate is not a word that makes a stranger hand you the keys to their house. So the two giants got a little poorer and a lot more demoralized, hauling bricks for almost nothing while established firms with shinier trucks took all the good jobs.

Then the big one had an idea so backwards it sounded insane.

What if, instead of being the cheapest bricklayers in Los Angeles, they became the most expensive? Not a little more. Ten times more.

His partner told him he had completely lost his mind. But the business was dying anyway, so what exactly was there to lose?

Here was the move. They renamed the company. They were no longer two broke kids with a wheelbarrow. They were now “European Specialist Bricklayers,” fresh off the boat, carriers of an old-world craft that these poor pragmatic Americans simply could not be expected to understand. (One of them had actually trained under master craftsmen in Europe, so this was not entirely a costume. But the marketing did most of the heavy lifting.)

They got themselves written up in the local paper as exotic, newly arrived artisans. And then they ran the play.

The big one would show up to inspect a cracked chimney, and somewhere in the process the shirt would come off, because a man cannot properly assess masonry in restrictive clothing, you understand. The reaction from the lady of the house was, reportedly, immediate.

Then came the theater. When it was time to discuss price, the two of them would argue loudly with each other in German, a heated back-and-forth the homeowner could not follow a single word of, until finally the big one would turn, sigh like a man making a painful sacrifice, and offer a “discount” down to a number that was still wildly more than any normal bricklayer would have dared to charge.

People paid it. Happily. They felt like they had won.

Within two years, the kid who could not give his work away at a discount had saved a million dollars.

You would know his name. You would know his face from one of the most famous movie posters ever printed. But the name is not the interesting part.

The interesting part is the exact mental move he made, the one that flipped him from desperate to premium, because it is almost certainly the same move you are refusing to make right now.

Here is who he was. And here is how to steal it:

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The two men sat at Café Angelina, in the north wing of the Luxembourg Gardens, speaking lower and closer than anyone else in the room.

One of them was trying not to laugh. The other was a bundle of nerves.

The nervous one slammed a quiet fist on the table.

— Jean-Édouard. Stop laughing. This is serious. You’re going to kill me.

The other covered his mouth, let half a laugh escape through his nose, and tried to compose himself.

— You know you’re crazy. You know I’m only helping you because this is the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. But if they catch you, that’s entirely your problem.

— I know, I know. Look — it’s almost one o’clock. The guard changes soon. We have to go.

Jean-Édouard reached into his pocket, left a few coins on the table, and they both walked out.

Between the two of them they had nearly a hundred and forty years. Anyone watching them on the street would have said they were the best friends in the world.

They were.

They stopped a few meters ahead, at the entrance of the Musée du Luxembourg. A poster welcomed visitors:

Second period of Cézanne. Itinerant exhibition of Pierre Bonnard. Retrospective of Henri Matisse.

They shared one last look before separating.

One of them walked toward the security post.

The guards saw an elderly gentleman approach, mumble something incoherent while clutching his chest, and collapse in what appeared to be an epileptic episode.

They didn’t notice the other man slipping inside at a brisk pace.

Once in, he went straight to the last gallery. The furthest one.

The Bonnard room.

The room was nearly empty. He turned his back to the only couple present, opened his heavy overcoat, and revealed the tools he had brought to carry out the attack he had planned.

A small vial of turpentine. Two brushes. A palette with several carefully mixed flesh tones.

His pulse was shaking.

He waited for the couple to leave, dried his hands on his coat, loaded a brush, and touched it to the canvas in front of him.

The strokes came fast and frantic. Sweat ran down his forehead with the same intensity as his movements. His conscience was screaming at him to stay alert, but he couldn’t hear it. He couldn’t feel anything except his arm correcting the painting.

Then voices. Then footsteps.

He froze.

A security guard walked past the end of the hall at full speed without looking at him — this man bent at an impossible angle, arm stretched toward two tubes of oil paint he’d dropped on the floor.

The footsteps faded.

He picked up the tubes, mixed frantically, loaded the brush again — and then:

— Monsieur! What are you doing!?

The same guard, back, walking toward him fast.

He dropped everything and tried to run the other direction. A stumble. A spectacular fall.

Hours later, at the police station, the officer asked for his name.

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Richard Davidson was exactly the kind of man who had everything figured out. By the early 1990s, he was a highly respected, heavily credentialed neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, dedicating his days to probing the darkest, most difficult corners of the human mind. He was a master of his domain, utilizing the most advanced tools of modern neuroscience to rigorously map out exactly how anxiety, depression, and paralyzing fear functioned inside the physical structures of the brain. He was doing important, necessary work, staring into the abyss of human misery and documenting exactly how the gears of suffering turned. Then, in 1992, his entire academic universe was completely upended by a conversation with a man who knew absolutely nothing about running a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine.

Davidson had the rare opportunity to meet the Dalai Lama, and as they sat together, the spiritual leader listened patiently to the neuroscientist explain his life’s work. The Dalai Lama was deeply fascinated by science, but he was also fundamentally confused by the scientific community’s absolute obsession with human misery. He looked at Davidson and presented a challenge that was as simple as it was devastating. He pointed out that Davidson and his colleagues had been using the brilliant, cutting-edge tools of modern neuroscience to almost exclusively study negative feelings. Then he asked why Davidson couldn’t take those exact same tools and use them to study the positive qualities of the human mind, like kindness, compassion, and equanimity.

Davidson sat there, completely frozen, because he realized with a sickening plunge in his stomach that he didn’t actually have a good answer. He had spent his entire career assuming that the absence of depression was the same thing as happiness, and he had never once bothered to apply his immense scientific rigor to the study of joy. It was a total wake-up call, acting as a massive, pivotal catalyst that instantly rewired Davidson’s entire life trajectory. He realized that his true purpose wasn’t just to document human suffering, but to actively decode human flourishing. Inspired by that single question, Davidson completely pivoted his career, eventually founding the Center for Healthy Minds, pioneering groundbreaking studies on the neurological effects of mindfulness and compassion, and completely changing our understanding of how the brain can actually be trained to be happy.

You have been Richard Davidson.

You have spent years mastering a job you secretly hate, pouring all your energy into becoming the absolute best at something that leaves you utterly empty.

You dig the hole deeper because digging is the only thing you know how to do.

And you convince yourself that this is just what life is. You tell yourself that purpose is a luxury reserved for monks and billionaires. You think that because you are good at something, you are legally obligated to keep doing it until you die.

It is pathetic. (And you do it every single day.)

Society trains you to obsess over the negative. You spend all your time analyzing your debts, your flaws, and your anxieties, applying absolute genius-level intellect to maintaining your own misery.

I have done this. I have spent years meticulously analyzing the body language of toxic narcissists, practically drowning in the absolute darkest psychological swamps of human behavior, until I woke up one morning and realized I was letting their darkness become my entire world.

I was treating human pain like a fascinating science project, while totally ignoring my own capacity for joy.

THEY WANT YOU TO STAY IN THE ABYSS.

Because a person who is constantly fighting their own anxiety is too tired to actually change the world. They are too exhausted to realize that the ladder they are climbing is leaning against the wrong wall.

You cannot find your purpose by analyzing your pain. You cannot figure out what you are meant to do by cataloging all the things you are terrified of.

You have to flip the lens.

You have to stop asking how to fix what is broken, and start asking how to amplify what is actually beautiful.

And here is exactly how you do it:

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Back at the turn of the twentieth century, Edward Scripps was a hugely successful and highly influential newspaper publisher who had built a massive media empire, which meant he had a lot to lose when a woman from his past suddenly showed up at his Cincinnati Post office.

This woman had previously been Scripps’s mistress, and she had not come to his office to catch up on old times. She marched in and flat-out threatened to publicly revive the scandalous story of their affair, demanding a large sum of hush money in exchange for her continued silence.

Now, for a man whose entire fortune and social standing relied on public reputation during a deeply conservative era, this was a disaster of apocalyptic proportions. Most powerful men in his position would have immediately panicked, frantically writing a check to quietly sweep the indiscretion under the rug, or perhaps hiring some private detectives to intimidate her into leaving town.

Scripps did neither of those things. Instead, he calmly summoned his city editor into the room and ordered him to immediately call two rival newspapers and invite their top reporters over to his office for an exclusive scoop.

When the competing journalists eagerly arrived, pens hovering over their notepads, Scripps simply stood up and introduced his would-be extortionist to the room. He casually announced that this woman had lived with him as his mistress, that she had been paid for her time, and that they had parted on good terms. He then cheerfully explained that she had shown up that very day threatening to expose the story unless he paid her off.

“You are at liberty to print the story,” Scripps boldly declared to the stunned reporters, adding that as far as he was concerned, the incident was now completely closed.

The rival papers happily ran the scandalous story with massive banner headlines, fully expecting to ruin him, but to everyone’s absolute astonishment, the shocking revelation did absolutely no harm to the circulation of the Post or to Scripps’s standing as an editor. By dragging his own skeleton out of the closet and putting it on display, he had instantly vaporized the woman’s only piece of leverage.

You have a blackmailer in your life right now.

Maybe they are not asking for cash in a briefcase. Maybe they are just a toxic mother-in-law who constantly threatens to tell the rest of the family what a terrible housekeeper you are.

Or a passive-aggressive ex who holds one of your old mistakes over your head to get you to comply with his ridiculous scheduling demands.

They weaponize your shame. They use your desperate need to look perfect as a leash to drag you around.

And you let them. You shrink. You apologize. You scramble to keep the secret buried.

It is pathetic. (And you do it every single time.)

Manipulators do not actually care about your mistakes. They care about your FEAR of your mistakes.

As long as you are terrified of looking bad, they own you. They are the puppet master, and you are the dancing marionette terrified of the curtain going up.

I have done this. I have bent over backwards to accommodate completely unreasonable people simply because I was terrified they would publicly announce that I was “difficult to work with.”

I was buying their silence with my own dignity.

You cannot negotiate with emotional extortionists. If you pay the ransom today, they will just come back tomorrow asking for more.

You must beat them to the punch.

You strip them of their power by entirely removing the secrecy they rely on. You take the exact thing they are threatening to expose and you proudly expose it yourself.

And here is exactly how you do it:

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Back in 1939, a twenty-four-year-old graduate student named George Dantzig was studying mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley, trying to survive the grueling academic grind. One day, he arrived completely late to a lecture taught by the notoriously brilliant professor Jerzy Neyman, rushing into the room just in time to see two statistical equations written on the chalkboard. Assuming they were simply the standard homework assignment for the week, Dantzig hurriedly copied them down in his notebook, apologizing for his tardiness, and went home to get to work.

Over the next few days, Dantzig struggled with the equations, feeling a growing sense of frustration as he wrestled with the math, later admitting to his professor that the assignment seemed just a little bit harder to do than usual. Finally, he managed to grind out the solutions, walked into Neyman’s office, and tossed the papers onto a massive, chaotic heap of files on the professor’s desk, secretly terrified that his hard-fought homework would be lost in the clutter forever.

About six weeks later, on a quiet Sunday morning at eight o’clock, Dantzig and his wife were suddenly jolted awake by someone frantically banging on their front door. It was Professor Neyman, clutching the submitted papers in his hands, completely breathless and visibly vibrating with excitement as he ordered the bewildered student to quickly read an introduction he had just written so the work could be sent out for immediate publication.

For a terrifying minute, Dantzig had absolutely no idea what the frantic professor was talking about. To his utter shock, the young man soon learned that the two equations on the chalkboard were not a weekly homework assignment at all, but rather two of the most famous, historically unsolved problems in the entire field of statistics. Because Dantzig had arrived late and completely missed the introduction explaining that these problems were considered impossible by the greatest minds in mathematics, his brain simply treated them as a routine task that required a bit of extra elbow grease, allowing him to effortlessly achieve what generations of geniuses could not.

You have been in that classroom.

You have looked at a project, a career change, or a financial hurdle, and immediately slapped an “IMPOSSIBLE” label on it.

You convince yourself that because nobody in your family has done it, or because the experts say it is too hard, you should not even bother trying.

It is a pathetic, self-fulfilling prophecy.

You do not fail because you lack the intellect. You fail because you let the world dictate the boundaries of your own capability before you even pick up the pen.

If someone hands you a box and tells you it weighs five hundred pounds, your brain pre-emptively shuts down your muscles. If they tell you it weighs fifty pounds, you pick it up.

I have done this exact thing. I have sat staring at a blank screen, absolutely paralyzed by the weight of writing a book, convinced that because I was not a formally trained psychologist, I had no right to decode human behavior.

I was letting an invisible authority figure tell me what I was allowed to lift.

Society relies on these invisible labels to keep you in your lane.

They want you to look at the chalkboard, see the word “unsolved,” and quietly take your seat with the rest of the obedient sheep.

You have to stop reading the labels.

You must deliberately cultivate a state of productive ignorance, stripping away the artificial difficulty assigned by other people and treating every massive hurdle like it is just Tuesday’s homework.

And here is exactly how you do it…

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A few years ago, researchers in Berlin decided to test the limits of human greed and fairness by placing pairs of random strangers in separate rooms. They told the participants they were going to play a very simple game, handing one person in each pair a sum of money, Say, ten dollars, and telling them they could divide that cash with their anonymous partner however they saw fit.

The only catch was that the anonymous partner had the final say, meaning if the partner accepted the split, they both walked away with the cash, but if the partner rejected the offer, the researchers kept the money and both people went home with absolutely nothing. There was no negotiation allowed, no coin flipping, and no second chances.

Now, if you look at this from a purely cold, mathematical perspective, the person receiving the offer should accept literally any amount of money, because if the person dividing the cash decides to keep nine dollars and offer you one single dollar, logic dictates that you should take it, as a dollar in your pocket is mathematically superior to zero dollars.

But the researchers discovered something fascinating about the human brain, because when the person dividing the money got greedy and offered an unfair split, the partners didn’t just accept the crumbs. They felt so indignant that they completely rejected the offer, and the vast majority of people presented with a totally unfair deal gladly chose to walk away with nothing, just to ensure that the greedy partner also suffered.

They did it with ten dollars, and they did the exact same thing when the researchers raised the stakes to a hundred dollars, happily walking away from free money and actively choosing to leave empty-handed just to enjoy the profound satisfaction of watching an arrogant stranger lose their unfair advantage.

You have played this game before.

You play it every time a toxic family member offers you a pathetic apology wrapped in a backhanded compliment.

You play it when that narcissistic colleague demands eighty percent of the credit for a project you built with your own two hands.

And instead of flipping the table, you take the deal.

You take the crumbs. You tell yourself that keeping the peace is better than starting a war. You convince yourself that getting a little bit of their approval, or a tiny fraction of respect, is mathematically better than getting nothing at all.

It is pathetic. (And I say that because I have absolutely done it too.)

I have sat across from manipulators and swallowed completely insulting terms just to avoid the discomfort of walking away. I have convinced myself I was being diplomatic, when in reality, I was just being a coward. I smiled while they handed me a raw deal, terrified that if I spoke up, I would lose the relationship entirely.

Manipulators rely on your fear of zero.

They know you are terrified of the void. They look at you, calculate exactly how much abuse you will tolerate, and offer you one penny more than your breaking point. They know you would rather accept a miserable, lopsided compromise than face the terrifying prospect of walking away empty-handed.

They use your desire for harmony as a weapon against you.

But the Berlin experiment proves that your brain already possesses the exact mechanism required to defeat them. Your primitive, built-in instinct is to reject injustice, even if it costs you.

You just have to stop overriding your own alarm system.

You have to become completely comfortable with zero.

And here is exactly how you do it:

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The more you study others, the more sensitive you become to the changes that inevitably accompany a lie.

Here are seven key clues:

#1: They repeat the question

A simple question deserves a simple answer. A liar’s mind needs precious fractions of a second to respond without compromising, so they stall by repeating the question back: “The report? That the report isn’t ready?”

The second version: complementing their answer with the question itself. “Did you feed the dog?” — “Yes, I fed the dog.”Including the original question in the answer signals a desire to sound convincing.

#2: The itchy mouth

Children instinctively cover their mouths when they hear or tell a lie. In adults, this becomes almost imperceptible — a subtle touch of the corners of the lips or the tip of the nose. Of all micro-gestures, these two are most intimately linked to deception.

#3: Sweating temples

The amygdala triggers perspiration when it senses imminent danger. A dry forehead that suddenly becomes pearly is a sign of stress. The person’s mind is split between managing the threat, reading your reactions, and developing the lie.

#4: Fixed eyes

The common myth says liars avoid eye contact. In reality, the opposite is often true. When we lie, we throw a “ball” and desperately watch to see if it lands. A liar will scrutinize your face, watching for any sign of doubt.

#5: Unnecessary justification

When we feel guilty, we over-explain. Any detail that seeks to prove what we’re saying — without being asked — is a red flag. A person recalling the truth takes their time; a person who’s rehearsed their answer delivers it seamlessly.

#6: Voice drops and visible swallowing

When lying, the tone and volume of a voice can drop by nearly 50%. Pay attention to what they were explaining at the exact moment the volume dropped. Also watch for deliberate swallowing — when nervous, people swallow saliva almost consciously.

#7: The relief of withdrawal

This is the hardest technique to apply. When an interrogation ends, a guilty person will be instantly relieved — a fraction of a second of shoulder relaxation and a deeper breath before they remember to show indignation.

An innocent person, falsely accused, won’t relax when questioned. Their indignation won’t dissipate the moment you stop.

Much Love and Bliss,

Jesús

These 10 body language clues reveal when a man feels jealous — and what to do about it.

#1: His neck and jaw will be tense.

Men are naturally competitive. If he feels threatened by another man, he’s going to show it with a stiff neck — a physical reaction even when there’s no immediate danger. Jealousy will put him in a defensive state whether he wants it to or not.

He’ll show it not only with his neck, but also with his jaw. If the competitor is nearby, or you’re casually talking about him, try to spot his jaw muscles. It’s easier to catch if you’re directly in front of him, where you can see the tension bulge.

#2: He’s going to block the competition with his body.

Let’s say you’re at a gathering and the man that sparks the jealousy is attending.

Your guy will position himself between you and the other man as much as he can — just to block his view of you. That physical blocking could go as far as standing straight, putting a hand on his hip, and projecting an elbow outwards.

It makes an even more aggressive stance to “block” access to you.

#3: He’ll make excuses to avoid situations that make him feel threatened.

If he’s generally jealous of other men, he’ll find any excuse to avoid certain situations. The crucial word here is excuses.

It’s normal to want time alone together. But if he’s consistently making excuses to avoid going out in a group, it may be because he feels insecure, not because he’s busy. He’ll also make sure you reconsider going on your own.

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It had been a good day. The partners had agreed on the plans to illuminate the Oktoberfest the following year, and everything was running smoothly.

But on the way home, his mind wasn’t on dynamos or contracts.

It was on his son.

Albie had been in bed for three days. Stubborn fever, four walls, and a look of boredom that could have broken an Olympic record.

Hermann stopped at a shop that sold camping and exploration gear, spent a good while deciding on nothing, and was about to leave empty-handed when he spotted it — right next to the cash register — a medium-sized compass.

He bought it without thinking too hard.

When he got home, his wife greeted him with a half smile.

— A gift for me?

— Actually, it’s for Albie.

He went upstairs, opened the bedroom door, and found exactly what he expected: silence and listlessness.

— I brought you something — he said, pulling out the box. — Open it.

The boy looked at the compass. He turned it one way, then the other. Shook it a couple of times.

The needle trembled, resisted, and always came back to the same place.

— How does it work?

— It’s called magnetism. If you want, I’ll tell you all about it.

The boy would remember that moment for the rest of his life.

Not because the compass was expensive, or because his father’s gesture was extraordinary.

But because that night he understood something he didn’t know he needed to understand: that there are invisible forces, mysterious ones, acting on things all the time.

Were there others?

That question led him to study physics despite never being particularly good at mathematics. To chase what can’t be seen.

To formulate, years later, one of the most transformative theories in history.

The boy was Albert Einstein.

And he always said the compass was the moment.

It took me a long time to discover that what I wanted most in life was to tell stories.

A thousand signs passed by that I didn’t know how to read.

Not because they were invisible. But because I wasn’t paying attention.

That’s the real problem, I think. Not that the sparks don’t exist. They do. They show up in ordinary moments — in a random shop, next to the cash register — while we’re too busy thinking about dynamos and contracts.

Your compass already exists.

You just have to notice that the needle never stops pointing in the same direction.

Much Love and Bliss,

Jesús

It doesn’t matter if you are leading a group, selling a project idea, or trying to convince your children; the ability to persuade is essential to achieving your goals in every case.

Furthermore, if you can achieve it without appearing stubborn or pushy, even better—that ensures you’ll be able to persuade them again in the future.

Of course, you are persuading for your own ends... but it is vital to understand the other person’s motivations and follow these steps:

1. Make the Benefit Immediate

People care about fast and tangible results. Don’t tell them that things will improve “by 30% in a few weeks”; tell them they will start to see a 2% daily improvement starting today.

You are offering the same thing, but the immediacy of the second version is far more seductive.

2. Make it Personal

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It was one of those streets barely three meters wide, paved with ancient cobblestones. There was a table stretching perhaps 20 meters long, full of people smiling and waving at the camera. Most looked to be in their 40s or 50s, some older.

The lighting was perfect: a couple of warm street bulbs flanking the houses, casting a glow over the improvised, but very fun, banquet.

I love these kinds of settings. The architecture, the lighting, the closeness—and above all, the fact that you can imagine how they all cooperated to share that amazing meal.

But there’s just one thing: I usually don’t have the best experiences in these situations.

Don’t get me wrong, but I have the uncanny ability to—in 98% of cases—get seated next to either boring or insufferable people. At least the boring people aren’t mean, I guess, but you get the idea of my struggle.

All the “cool” people seem to be meters away, having the time of their lives, while I’m stuck discussing the weather or lawn maintenance.

Now, you might be asking:

“But Jesus, don’t you like to study human nature? Don’t you find ALL people interesting? Haven’t you told me that you can learn something from ANYONE you meet?”

And I’d say yes! I have said all three of those things. Especially the last one. You can learn something from anyone you meet.

But “learning something” doesn’t mean everyone is interesting.

Those are two very different things.

The problem is, the more you study human nature, the more you read, and the more you ponder your own self... the more people will start to feel boring and uninteresting to you. (And you will have significantly less tolerance for the insufferable ones!)

But you know what? That’s a good thing. And this comes from a decades-old people pleaser.

Realizing that some people are boring, or superficial, or insufferable is a sign of growth. It means you finally know what your time is worth—and by extension, what you are worth.

Because if today we don’t mind hanging out with boring people, tomorrow we will have to tolerate the insufferable ones daily... “because it’s the civilized thing to do.”

No. You don’t have to.

That is a slippery slope toward toxic empathy. I know this because of my experience as a people pleaser! Today, I want to tell you that wanting to hang out with interesting people (while actively avoiding the rest) is something we should all be free to do.

Doing things in a group is great, but doing things in a group made of people that you find interesting and fascinating—that’s another dimension entirely. It pushes you into a growth state that acts like a gym for your mind and spirit.

“But if I start rejecting and avoiding people, I will end up alone,” some will say.

I hope that isn’t the case for you.

Because those who speak like this usually need to spend time alone to discover their own set of values.

Realize that having just one friend who we resonate with is worth 100 Facebook contacts who we barely send best wishes to on their conveniently reminded birthdays.

Quality of life starts with quality of thinking and quality of emotions.

And as with anything, it also has to do with the people around you.

“You are the sum of the five people you hang out with the most”.

Or something like that.

So, make sure those five people are not boring—and much less insufferable!

Much Love and Bliss,

Jesús

The Jack Lemmon Lesson

In 1953, a young Jack Lemmon arrived in Hollywood to film It Should Happen To You alongside Judy Holliday.

During one of the rehearsals, the legendary director George Cukor cut Lemmon in the middle of a scene and told him:

“Jack, do less.”

Lemmon realized he was overacting, apologized, and tried again.

He was promptly cut short. “Do less,” the director said again.

The actor obliged and repeated the scene, only to be stopped once more with the same two words.

This happened so many times that Lemmon finally snapped and almost shouted: “Mr. Cukor, if I do less than this, I’d be doing nothing!”

Cukor smiled broadly and replied: “Now you get it, Jack!”

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“Why do some people feel exhausted and depleted after social interactions (and others feel energized by them)?”

And that’s something that happened to me on a daily basis. How did I solve it?

Well, at first I didn’t! I just labelled myself as an “introvert” and called it a day.

But of course, the social anxiety was still there.

Even after years of studying human behavior, I had not realized I was just looking for a way to cope with social interactions, but not truly understand why I dreaded them.

The Trap of Labels

We humans love labels. “Introvert” and “Extrovert” are two very popular ones.

Do you know why we love labels? Because they allow us to “belong” to a tribe or sub-tribe.

In my case, I wore the “introvert” label like a badge of courage—like something quirky or special.

It doesn’t help that there is a whole culture around the “power of being an introvert,” which it took me a while to realize was just absurd.

“Introversion” and “Extroversion” are treated like “cold” and “hot” as if they were two different things.

But nope, they are two terms referring to the same thing: temperature.

In my case, being an introvert was just a fancy word to say I lacked social skills.

The Realization

I began developing my social skills. I became a better communicator, more persuasive, and even controlled my body language like the best politician in the world (Yuck!).

None of that worked.

I realized that my mind was framed the wrong way. My social anxiety came from not having a SYSTEM to interact with people.

So, drawing from my love of video games, I came up with one.

The System

I began to see people as secondary characters (NPCs) in the video game of my own life. These people around me, in any circumstance, held “clues” to help me level up, reach the next castle, or finish the current stage.

I tricked my mind into remembering that rush of dopamine when talking to in-game characters. In a game, they give you tips, you use them, and voilà!—a creaky door opens, allowing you to go further down a moldy dungeon. Sweet!

In this case, it’s real life, but the principle is the same.

Your Own Life Quest

Maybe after reading this, you’ll still consider yourself an introvert. That’s fine! Just realize that social anxiety is not part of your personality—or anyone’s personality, for that matter.

You just need a system.

I found mine, and it worked. Perhaps you can use it; if not, you can use it as a stepping stone to find a system that is uniquely yours.

After all, in your life’s video game, I’m just a secondary character. ;)

The trick to overcoming social anxiety is to think not of the interactions themselves (which can be harsh), but of the gems and secrets that you could unlock.

Every person on this planet has at least one interesting story to tell.

So, go and find it!

Much Love and Bliss,

Jesús

What, you disagree? then let me make my point with the help of Juana Galán, which was like a nineteenth century Spanish Sarah Connor:

It was 1807 and Napoleon was really bored, so he started the Peninsular war against Spain and Portugal.

Throughout that conflict, the French troops had to pass through the town of Valdepeñas.

Most, if not all of Valdepeñas’ men were fighting their asses off elsewhere.

Juana Galán was a 22-year-old barmaid in the main tavern of the city.

A la “Molly’s Game”, she had the advantage of listening the gossip from travelers spilling all the alcohol-soaked beans.

So she was the first to know of the incoming baguette troopers.

She assumed that the French riflemen were not going to pass peacefully through a city full of vulnerable women.

So she decided to rip the ‘vulnerable’ out of the equation.

Juana assembled all the town’s women in an offensive that Netflix could put to good use today.

When Napoleon’s troops reached the city, they were ambushed with boiling water from the balconies.

The streets were flooded with boiling oil that wreaked havoc in the cavalry.

Amidst the confusion, the second degree burns and the French accented screams, a figure raised.

A group of women led by a baton-armed Juana (Although I prefer the version of an iron cast pan), began to fracture skulls and make grey matter ratatouille.

Seriously, I’d pay good money to watch Zack Snyder direct a movie about this, starring Gina Carano in all slo-mo glory.

The intruders had no other option but retreat and leave Valdepeñas alone.

— — —

Now, I know what you’re thinking:

“But what the hell does all this have to do with books being dangerous?”

Oh, right. The books.

They’re dangerous in the sense that you can think that knowledge is actually power.

And IT IS NOT.

ACTION is power.

Books nurture you with fresh knowledge (as Juana’s gossip). And that’s awesome, because you need to SEE what you are acting on.

That’s why I wrote my latest book. So you can ACT on what you FEEL.

Yes, I know. I just told you books are dangerous. But this one comes with a Juana guarantee — it's only useful if you act on it.

23 tactics. No theory. But what actually feels like to be manipulated.

How to Know If He’s Manipulating You — $4.99.

P.S. $4.99. Juana would approve.

From the first industrial revolution until the early 1980s, everyone “knew” that stress was the cause of stomach ulcers.

It’s logical, don’t you think?… more stress -> more acid -> ulcers.

Dr. Marshall disagreed, and set to work.

Marshall partnered with the conveniently named Robin Warren to show that stomach ulcers were caused by bacteria.

Hundreds of biopsies, cultures and experiments later, his hypothesis was practically confirmed.

But the scientific community laughed at him.

Animal tests were insufficient for demonstration.

He had to experiment on a healthy human.

So Marshall, as a mad scientist… did what any mad scientist would do in his place.

He drank a complete culture with the bacteria, bottoms up.

Because YOLO.

In less than a week, he developed an ulcer that would make any Mad Men publicist blush.

(And survived to tell the tale).

It was a statement for the whole community: Marshall matters.

This is where Barry made the experiment. Right?

Marshall’s experiment is considered one of the most important milestones in 20th century medicine.

Finally, in 2005 he won the Nobel in that field, along with Warren.

We all have one, even several, moments in our life that we have to put all of our chips on the table.

«All in», as they say in poker.

In Marshall’s case, he had absolutely all the evidence that his theory of healing ulcers with antibiotics would work.

But what about us?

Sometimes we have to make that leap of faith even though everyone warns us otherwise.

(Marshall himself concealed the experiment from his wife, including the tiny detail of increasing the chances of stomach cancer by 10x as a result).

Are you willing to do something like that?

But I also don't usually offer The Knesix Code at 60% off.

Today is the last day at $197. Tomorrow it goes back to $497.

Over 3,000 students. Three modules. Lifetime access.

knesix.com/masterclass

Much Love and Bliss,

Jesús

P.S. It actually goes back to $497 tomorrow. No exceptions.

knesix.com/masterclass

This magnificent basterd shows up to the Battle of Arnhem (an actual friggin’ BATTLE with bullets and explosions and a Tarantino-amount of dying), carrying an UMBRELLA.

Not a bulletproof gun-umbrella like Colin Firth in the movie Kingsman. I wish!

Not an umbrella with a secret sword inside. Or laser-powered. Or with the tip dipped in some radioactive Amazonian frog juice.

Nope. A regular-ass umbrella.

His explanation? So his own guys could recognize him as Bri’ish.

Because apparently the British accent, uniform, and him yelling “CHEERIO, OLD CHAPS” wasn’t enough.

Seriously, I had to DOUBLE-CHECK this story was true.

He also forgot essential shlit like his helmet and radio. But don’t worry! He remembered to bring some Shakespeare, because apparently a rousing soliloquy from King Lear helps curve Nazi gunfire around you.

At one point, this maniac led a bayonet charge while twirling his umbrella like Mary f*cking Poppins.

THEN he disabled a German armored vehicle by JAMMING HIS UMBRELLA THROUGH THE VIEWING SLIT.

Picture being the German soldier inside: “Hans, I cannot see! There appears to be formal rain protection inserted into our tank! MEIN GOTT!!1”

But here’s the punchline that will make you question everything about how the world works:

Not only did Digby survive this weapons-grade insanity.

THEY ALSO PROMOTED HIM.

Why? Because here’s a rather harsh truth in life...

Leadership, and sometimes even industriousness has below zero to do with competence.

It’s more like being able to see the battlefield in a way that no one else can (and maybe bring a wacky rain-deterring device with you)

Most people are getting played their entire lives because they think persuasion and success is about having the most facts or the best PowerPoint.

They think confidence is something you earn by actually knowing what you’re doing.

Oh, you sweet summer child! lol

You absolutely MUST know what you’re doing, but if we can learn anything from Digby’s story, is that he didn’t need to shout out “I’m in control” like he was at a Tony Robbins event.

And he didn’t have to do that because he was strutting through a warzone with an umbrella like he was late for teatime at Buckingham Palace.

This man had made a complete category for himself, and that’s the only reason why history remembers him.

His body language must have been screaming “I’m so far beyond giving a feck that I’ve circled back around to supreme confidence.”

But that confidence can only come from knowledge.

And as Sun Tzu said...

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

That’s EXACTLY what I built The Knesix Code to do.

Know yourself — your blind spots, your biases, your tells — so no one can use them against you.

Read others — their real emotions, their hidden intentions, their masks — before they even know you’re watching.

And then walk into any room the way Digby walked into Arnhem: like you already own the place.

Over 3,000 people have gone through it. Three modules. Lifetime access. Ten minutes a day.

It has always been at $497. Right now, it’s $197. That ends tomorrow.

knesix.com/masterclass

This is your chance to learn what crazy bastards like Digby accidentally figured out — except you’ll do it on purpose.

(And without the umbrella. Unless you want to. I won’t judge.)

Much Love and Bliss,

Jesús

P.S. Wednesday it goes back to $497.

knesix.com/masterclass

Something like a latent impatience to discover ‘that thing’ that will give it all meaning.

Your purpose. Your vision.

It can be maddening to watch others fully devoted to ‘that thing’ they’ve envisioned for themselves, while you keep wondering if you even chose the right path.

It’s perfectly normal. Many of us suffer through that for years.

To illustrate, let me tell you the story of Gabrielle.

Maybe her inner struggle will help yours.

——

Gabrielle was kneeling by the bed.

At just eleven years old, she watched her mother slowly fade away, sick with tuberculosis.

She died shortly after.

Her father, whom she barely ever saw, took her and her two sisters to a convent, promising to come back for them soon.

It was the last time she ever saw him.

——

In that strict, grey place, the nuns imposed fierce discipline. There was no room for distractions, or joy, or even the slightest decoration to please the eye.

Her life would have been miserable, if not for a handful of novels by Pierre Decourcelle, known for his romantic fiction.

She had discovered the forbidden stash hidden inside a convent wardrobe — confiscated from whoever managed to smuggle them past those thick walls.

Most of the stories followed the Cinderella pattern: a dispossessed young woman who ends up living in a palace by some twist of fate.

But what captivated Gabrielle the most was the intricate description of every dress the heroines wore.

That’s how she endured seven years, until at eighteen she left for a boarding school. There, she discovered theater.

She did absolutely everything to become a star: acting, singing, dancing. But deep down, she felt it wasn’t the right path to the success she was chasing.

——

Even for the most outstanding actresses of the era, it was hard to make a living from the stage alone.

So most of them sought to win over some wealthy admirer with the means to support them.

A ‘Sugar Daddy’, as we’d call it today.

It wasn’t long before Gabrielle found hers: Etienne Balsan.

Balsan, the heir to a considerable fortune, invited her to live in his château. There, Gabrielle became just another courtesan.

She had achieved her dream.

Or so she thought.

——

It didn’t take long before Gabrielle started feeling, once again, that something was missing.

She lived in a luxurious castle. She had all the clothes she could desire.

And still, she felt empty.

Wandering through the halls of that palace one day, she entered Etienne’s room and, without knowing exactly why, opened his wardrobes and began trying on his clothes.

Something clicked inside her.

She felt liberated.

Instead of the uncomfortable dresses and corsets imposed by the suffocating standards of women’s fashion, men’s trousers and shirts were infinitely more comfortable to wear.

It wasn’t about ‘looking’ like a man — she felt entirely feminine. It was about wearing clothes that didn’t restrict her movement.

In that moment, she understood the root of the dissatisfaction she had always felt.

Everything she had pursued throughout her life — the theater, the palace life, the men she had seduced — was the product of a continuous search for control and freedom.

The control and freedom she had never had, for as long as she could remember.

She realized she had always envied the power men held, and above all, their right to wear practical, comfortable clothing while women resigned themselves to a daily torture.

From the very first moment Gabrielle walked through the château dressed like that, she turned every head. She was finally in her element: power, transmitted through her clothes.

It was impossible not to notice the shift in her personality. If she had been captivating before, now she was overwhelming.

The other courtesans noticed instantly, and wanted to emulate her style. Now she was the center — they spent hours visiting her room, asking for advice, wearing whatever she suggested.

It was only a matter of time before that style transcended the walls of the château. Before her declaration of freedom went viral.

She was ready to hold the world in her hand.

Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel was an iconoclast who defined a milestone in the history of fashion: something as radical as the liberation of women’s clothing... by making it look more like men’s.

But Coco didn’t know exactly what she wanted, so she chased the ‘wrong’ goals for many years.

Fortunately, she never stopped searching. She never settled. And until her spirit had the certainty of having found her purpose, she did not rest.

How many people in this world settle for ‘whatever life gives them’?

How many don’t even bother to ask themselves what their purpose might be?

We live in a dangerous era where we’re exposed to hundreds of models of ‘success’ through media, and we don’t take enough time to reflect in silence about ourselves.

To try to define the vision we want to focus on.

You know what the problem is? We think our purpose is something we have to ‘become’.

That until we have the money, the connections, the degree, or the right job, we won’t be ‘it’.

Your purpose is not out there. It’s not something you ‘grow into’.

You already are it, even if you don’t know it yet.

Your purpose is already inside you. You just have to remove everything that’s covering it.

Sadly, we’re conditioned from childhood — without malice — by the question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

They certainly don’t ask it with bad intentions, but it predisposes us to something: first we have to grow up, in order to be something.

First we have to get this and that, in order to be whole and happy.

No.

We must understand that wholeness and happiness lie in realizing what we already are.

Discovering ourselves. Knowing and accepting ourselves.

The search is internal.

You are a sculpture hidden inside an immense block of marble.

You just have to remove everything that doesn’t belong.

Your doubts. Your fears. Your uncertainty.

This step may be difficult, because it demands real emotional intelligence.

The sensitivity to know what it is that truly moves you.

But until you manage that — until you achieve a true introspection — you’ll keep drifting.

You’ll keep searching for something more, like Gabrielle.

Much Love and Bliss,

Jesús

The Knesix Code: my complete Body Language and Persuasion Masterclass. Over 3,000 students. $197 instead of $497, until Wednesday.

knesix.com/masterclass

Much Love and Bliss,

Jesús

P.S. It has always been at $497, and it’ll go right back there on Wednesday. Only time I’ve offered it at this price through this newsletter.

knesix.com/masterclass