The Wellbeing Revolution
It's time to put wellbeing at the center.
I’m hearing it from all corners of my life right now - clients, students, friends, family, & subscribers - people are overwhelmed, tired, anxious, frustrated, and angry.
It’s a bit of a paradox. There’s more content than ever before that labels itself as health and wellness. Podcasts, livestreams, reels, blog posts, YouTube - for decades we’ve been sold an image of “success” focused on a model where we grind hard and buy happiness. Yet, you probably don’t need statistics to tell you how unhappy the general population is (though those stats do exist).
It’s remarkably frustrating. So many people calling themselves experts and yet people are more confused than ever. Most people need the basics. But the basics feel impossible in a culture that’s been designed to exploit us.
We need something different.
We need a wellbeing revolution.
A culture designed to exploit us.
So much of our general culture has been designed to exploit our neurology and physiology. I don’t say that lightly and I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I don’t think it was a great machination - I think it was normal people just trying to be good at their jobs and over decades building things that ultimately are hurting us.
Let me give you 2 examples we’ve all experienced:
Our Food - If you eat the way most Americans eat (which is both statistically likely and most people misestimate their own nutrition) then you eat food that has been engineered. Not just for the conscious factors like taste or color, but many subconscious factors like “mouth feel” and compulsive craveability (I go into how in the episode above). If you’re middle aged or younger you’ve likely been exposed to these foods since early childhood, shaping your cravings, gut microbiome, and pleasure structures in your brain.
The goal: increase the frequency and volume of these foods that you consume so you’ll buy more of them and more frequently. Over time the calorie counts and nutrient profiles of these foods have been modified to match whatever the current cultural food fads are so the population feels “good” about continuing to buy them. (Notice how suddenly everything is a “high protein” food?)
The problem: the greater % of calories that come from Ultra Processed Foods the worse a persons health outcomes. Which has been well known for years and is just making it into the public health conversation.Our Phones - Ever notice your own compulsion to reach for your phone even when you don’t have a notification or alert? Sure, we all know screens can be “addictive”. But have you considered that someone made it that way?
Early in the development of Facebook engineers began to manipulate the apps function to give you a little dopamine hit using the app. Over time more and more apps took on this model - manipulating our ability to control our own attention and awareness.
The Goal: Keep you glued to your phone so apps can sell adds, sponsored content, or subscriptions you forget you have.
The Problem: The “attention economy” has so many of us unable to wrestle the already unruly monkey mind. If you’ve got a teenager you’ve had a front row seat to seeing what an entire generation exposed to this technology without a fully developed brain looks like. People struggling to communicate verbally, detached from their bodies, and performing for an invisible audience that erodes a healthy sense of self and connection.
Again - I don’t think this was originally malicious or intended to control us. But there was likely a time, just like with the oil companies in the 70s or big tobacco and cancer, when it became obvious that it was hurting people. Yet, the trend pressed on because of… profits.
In an attention and appetite economy both food processing and screen time translate to revenue. There are other examples, but these are the 2 most people can feel.
No wonder so many people are overwhelmed, overstimulated, sick, and anxious.
This is why we need a Wellbeing Revolution.
A Wellbeing Revolution
Social tides are difficult to turn, and these are strange times. Regardless of background just about everyone I know agrees we’re in a bad way. We’re poised for something radical. A radical shift in culture. A radical shift in how we live our lives. Not because of AI or another tech revolution; but because this is unsustainable.
To be clear: I don’t think we need it to be wellbeing because it’s nice.
Yes, feeling good feels good. But there’s more to it.
We will be less effective at shifting this social tide if we’re dejected, exhausted, helpless and passive. If any part of you wants to fight these exploitative changes it means working against these harmful tides.
30 years of research in positive psychology has shown that those with higher wellbeing are more effective. They’re more creative, better problem solvers, they learn new skills and make new social connections more effectively. Those are all skills we’ll need to solve the very real problems facing our society.
Anger, anxiety, fear, rage - they motivate and focus us in the short term. But this isn’t going to be a short-term set of problems. Climate. Social policy changes. The tectonic changes in how our government is being run. It took decades to make these problems and they’re not evaporating overnight.
Burnout, despair, and overwhelm will be a concession to those problems because they will make us more passive, helpless, and depressed.
We need to be radically well to be in a state where we can connect, collaborate, support one another, and problem solve.
To be clear: it doesn’t have to be so you can save the world.
Perhaps what you care about is your family. Your community. You want to be a force of stability and care for those you love as things feel unstable and scary.
Or even wanting to be well for the sake of your own existence (though, we know people tend to have greater wellbeing when they’re also invested in a meaning or cause greater than themselves).
We need real information.
We need community and support.
We need paths to follow that actually meet people where they are and help them.
That path starts by gaining awareness of your self and what you can control in your life. How much power you really do have - to say no, to start living something else. To connect with and know yourself and prioritize who you are.
This is where it gets difficult for me…
Because I don’t want to sound like the same old hucksters out there selling supplements. When I started as a content creator it was to be a source of reliable information that I knew not everyone could afford to pay for. It’s been really rewarding - but it’s limited.
It can’t give you direct community and support. Which I believe is 100% essential to make meaningful progress towards building a state of wellbeing. A physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual state where it’s more difficult to be exploited and manipulated by these greater social forces.
So I’m trying something new.
For all the reasons above and more I’ve started a community I’m calling
The Wellbeing Revolution. A free digital community designed to unplug from exploitative wellness social media & connect you with a group of other people on a journey to build wellbeing so they can serve & evolve their personal mission.
New content is being added weekly.
Full transparency: there will be paid content down the line (so I can pay to keep it going) but the community itself and the core content is free. So that anyone can begin to build wellbeing in their lives.
Want to join our community?