When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora)
Andy Johns, a former product and growth leader at Facebook, Twitter, and Wealthfront, shares his journey from burnout and a health scare to becoming a mental health advocate. He discusses the four steps of deep personal transformation, how to identify signs of struggle, and practical ways to seek self-understanding and healing.
Deep Dive Analysis
22 Topic Outline
Andy's Career Path and Personal Struggles
Andy's Experience with Acute Burnout and Panic Attacks
Prevalence of Mental Health Struggles in Tech
Decision to Leave a High-Paying VC Career
Andy's Current Work in Mental Health Advocacy
Four-Step Process of Deep Personal Transformation
The Ego's Resistance to Change
Distinguishing Necessary and Unnecessary Suffering
Initial Steps to Understand Personal Suffering
Guidance on Finding an Effective Therapist
The Healing Power of Writing for Self-Understanding
Structured and Unstructured Writing Methods
Recognizing Signs of Deeper Mental Health Issues
Cultivating Self-Compassion and Self-Love
The Long and Unpredictable Timeline of Healing
Developing Compassion for Others
When Radical Transformation is Not Necessary
Example of Radical Transformation: Pema Chodron
Societal and Internal Barriers to Change
The Importance of Finding Your Unique Path
Closing Message and Living by Surrender
Andy's Current State and Philosophy of Life
6 Key Concepts
Adaptations (in life)
These are behaviors or coping mechanisms formed in response to formative experiences, often in childhood, to ensure survival or well-being. While initially beneficial, if their subconscious drivers are not understood, these adaptations can eventually become detrimental to one's present and future development.
Necessary vs. Unnecessary Suffering
Necessary suffering is an unavoidable part of life, encompassing physical ailments, aging, and loss. Unnecessary suffering, conversely, is largely self-imposed or 'made up in our minds,' often stemming from the human mind's 'superpowers gone awry' in a modern context. The goal is to minimize the latter type of suffering.
The Ego (in transformation)
The ego represents the established sense of self that resists challenges and attempts to undermine its authority. It acts as a survival mechanism, protecting the 'old self' even if that identity is causing harm, making the process of letting go of the old self (described as 'death before dying') very difficult.
Autobiographical Brain
The brain functions as a 'prediction engine' that forecasts future events based on past experiences. This means that an adult's presentation to the world is largely a reflection of their personal history, including past messages, societal conditioning, and experienced traumas.
Inertia of Society
This refers to the powerful societal pressure that conditions individuals from an early age to conform to certain beliefs and behaviors. People often suppress their unique individuality to gain acceptance and love from their social groups, which can significantly hinder personal transformation.
The Middle Way
A concept from Eastern spiritual traditions, particularly Buddhism, which suggests that the path to liberation or fulfillment is not found in extremes. Instead, it advocates for a balanced approach, avoiding both excessive indulgence and severe asceticism, as exemplified by Buddha's own journey.
9 Questions Answered
Look for disruptions in fundamental functions like consistently poor sleep, constantly strained relationships, or declining physical health. These are flashing red alarms from your body indicating something detrimental is happening that requires attention.
The most common and effective first step is to turn to a trained professional like a therapist, psychologist, or counselor. They can help you understand yourself and act as a 'router' to other specialists if needed.
Approach it like 'speed dating' by trying out a few therapists and trusting your intuition about who feels safe and comfortable. It's also beneficial to find someone whose intellectual abilities you respect and who can communicate on your wavelength.
Engaging in a daily writing practice with pen and paper is a deeply overlooked and underrated method. This involves sitting down to write to yourself, asking questions, and evaluating the thoughts running through your head.
One method is completely unstructured, allowing thoughts to flow freely without agenda. Another structured approach involves listing recent situations where you had strong emotional reactions, then repeatedly asking 'why did that happen?' to dig for underlying truths until you reach an uncomfortable truth or an epiphany.
While instantaneous on a cosmic scale, from a human perspective, these significant shifts often take years. Examples like Eckhart Tolle and Buddha suggest journeys of around seven to eight years to move from an old sense of self to a new one.
A significant barrier is the 'inertia of society,' which conditions individuals from an early age to conform and suppress their unique individuality in exchange for love and acceptance. The fear of not being accepted if one chooses to 'walk their own path' is terrifying.
No, for the vast majority (90-95%) of people, changes are 'micro-transitions' like changing jobs, downsizing a house, or ending a relationship, which may be sufficient. Radical transformation of identity is rare, affecting less than 1% of the population.
It's a long process of rewiring deeply internalized self-beliefs, starting with awareness of negative patterns. When a conditioned behavior is spotted, intervene by consciously choosing a different response, like simply accepting a compliment with 'thank you' instead of deflecting. Consistent daily practice accumulates powerful change.
15 Actionable Insights
1. Recognize Burnout Alarm Signals
Pay attention if core behaviors like sleep, relationships, or physical health are consistently disrupted, as these are undeniable signs your body is signaling a detrimental situation requiring change.
2. Embrace Suffering as Catalyst
Acknowledge that significant life transitions rarely occur without suffering, and often, deeper suffering precedes more profound change.
3. Seek Truth Behind Suffering
Once suffering becomes unbearable, commit to understanding the root causes of your pain by digging through your subconscious mind, history, and relationships.
4. Consult a Mental Health Professional
If in distress or seeking self-understanding, reach out to a therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist, or counselor, as they can help identify truths and route you to specialized support.
5. Practice Journaling for Insight
If not ready for therapy, regularly sit with pen and paper to write to yourself, ask questions, and evaluate your thoughts to gain deep self-understanding.
6. Analyze Emotional Reactions
To gain self-understanding, list recent situations where you became acutely emotional or reactionary, then repeatedly ask ‘why did that happen?’ to uncover underlying reflexes and truths.
7. Practice Self-Compassion
After discovering the truth of your suffering and realizing it’s not your fault, intentionally practice self-forgiveness and self-love, allowing yourself to live in a way that values your well-being.
8. Cultivate Compassion for Others
As you understand and forgive yourself, you will naturally develop compassion for others by recognizing that their behaviors often stem from their past experiences and conditioning.
9. Choose a Safe, Smart Therapist
Select a therapist based on intuition, prioritizing feeling safe and comfortable with them, and ideally finding someone whose intellectual abilities you respect.
10. Heed Your Body’s Signals
Understand that your body keeps a score of mental health struggles, and chronic physical ailments like poor sleep, teeth grinding, or heart issues can be manifestations of unaddressed emotional burdens.
11. Practice Accepting Compliments
When receiving praise, consciously make eye contact and say ’thank you’ to intercept conditioned behaviors and gradually develop a new, more positive internal narrative about your self-worth.
12. Discover Your Unique Life Path
Recognize that society conditions you away from your unique individuality; actively choose to go against the grain and discover who you were before the world told you who to be.
13. Surrender and Flow with Life
Instead of constantly striving, practice surrendering to life’s current, paying attention to internal and external signals, and allowing yourself to be guided towards your intended destination.
14. Connect with Andy Johns
Reach out to Andy Johns via Twitter (@clues.life), LinkedIn (Andrew Johns), or his website (clues.life) for support or to explore mental health resources.
15. Provide Feedback to Andy
If Andy’s message has been beneficial, share your experience with him to provide encouragement and ‘put wind in his sails’.
9 Key Quotes
But I was so focused on my work that I had slowly become the frog that was boiling in the pot. You know, the typical analogy, but you don't realize how bad things are getting because it's happening to you slowly until it happens quickly, right?
Andy Johns
These adaptations, if you're unaware of them, and if you're unaware of the subconscious drivers that are responsible for them, they run the risk that they go too far. And that these adaptations, which were initially beneficial to you and to your life, they reverse course, in a sense, and they become detrimental to your present state and your future development.
Andy Johns
My stepping away from the career, stepping away from the high salary and stepping away from everything I've worked so hard to obtain was an action that I took in recognition of the fact that that early life adaptation had now gone awry and was responsible for my life heading in a negative direction. And it was time to change.
Andy Johns
I wasn't running from something. I was running back towards myself. That was an act of kindness towards myself.
Andy Johns
You'll know what the truth is because it always feels either deeply uncomfortable or it feels like an epiphany.
Andy Johns
The world will ask you who you are and if you don't know, it'll tell you.
Andy Johns
Everyone's trying to make it to Bangkok. The problem is they're getting to Bangkok by following somebody else's road. The whole point is to find your own path to Bangkok.
Andy Johns
The vast majority of people who die on Mount Everest actually die on the way down, not on the way up. You don't save anything for the return home, I think is the point.
Andy Johns
It's possible that there's something amazing for us downstream. So long as we're willing to surrender and just let go, to turn off the intellectual mind a bit, to quit trying to plan as if you can predict the future, to quit thinking about all the edge cases and trying to optimize our life, which I think is a bunch of bullshit.
Andy Johns
4 Protocols
Process of Deep Personal Transformation
Andy Johns- Begin with suffering: These large transitions rarely occur without suffering; deeper suffering often precedes more significant transformation.
- Seek the truth behind why you suffer: Once suffering becomes unbearable, commit to understanding your true self, your history, relationships, and subconscious patterns.
- Experience and practice self-compassion and self-love: Discover that your suffering isn't necessarily your fault, leading to forgiveness and a commitment to living in a way that values yourself.
- Develop compassion towards others: By understanding and forgiving yourself, you gain insight into the struggles and behaviors of others, fostering universal compassion.
Unstructured Writing for Self-Understanding
Andy Johns- Sit down with no specific agenda.
- Allow whatever thoughts or feelings are bubbling up in your mind to flow onto the paper without analysis.
- Write as much or as little as feels right for the day, whether it's one sentence or ten pages.
Structured Writing for Self-Understanding
Andy Johns- Quickly list simple bullet points of the most recent situations where you became acutely reactionary and emotional.
- For each situation, ask yourself 'Why did that happen?' and write down your initial thoughts.
- Continue to dig deeper by asking 'Is that really the reason why? Was there something else?' until you uncover a truth that feels deeply uncomfortable or like an epiphany.
Cultivating Self-Compassion by Responding to Compliments
Andy Johns (based on advice from a former boss)- When someone gives you a compliment, make eye contact with them.
- Simply say 'Thank you' or 'You're welcome.'
- Consciously embrace and accept that moment of positive feedback, rather than deflecting or minimizing it.