What’s a mental prison?

One night in 2014, I went to see one of the greatest electric guitarists and jazz musicians to ever live: Allan Holdsworth. You may never have heard of him, but he was on the cover of every guitar magazine multiple times throughout his decades-long career. Guitar Player magazine declared him to be “The Man Who Changed Guitar Forever!”

Anyway, I was thrilled to see one of my guitar heroes for the first time in my life. It was a full house, the crowd was hyped up, and I had a great seat front and center. Allan came out, played a few songs, and blew our minds.

Then, he did something completely unexpected…

He started insulting himself and apologizing for playing so poorly. “That was Farmer Al on the banjo, still figuring out how to pluck the strings. I’m so sorry. You really deserve better than this.” At first it was mildly funny, but he kept at it all night. Apologizing between every song and ripping on himself, leading the audience to shout back, “Allan, you’re doing great! Keep playing! Don’t be so hard on yourself!”

Personally, I was shocked. I never imagined anything like that happening at a show like this. Furthermore, he was saying out loud the kind of stuff I’d secretly been telling myself for decades: “You suck,” “You’ll never be any good,” and “You’re an idiot for trying.” I couldn’t believe a legitimate genius like Allan Holdsworth could be dealing with the same stuff as a regular “nobody” like me.

That’s when I realized these kinds of thoughts have almost nothing to do with reality, accomplishments, status, or album sales. Allan and I were suffering from the same thing. We were stuck in a mental prison.

Being in a mental prison sucks. Between the ages of 10 and 40, I consistently set high expectations, nearly met them, and quickly moved the goal posts. In other words, I never let myself win. So I started identifying with the word “loser.” Other words I identified with include: idiot, fat, ugly, moron, stupid, jerk.

I spent thirty years stuck in a mindset of failure. Yes, I was able to use it to my advantage as motivation to continuously improve and achieve. The downside was that I was constantly berating myself, even to the point of hurting myself until I bled or bruised. (Thankfully, I am all healthy now and feeling good about my life.)

Too many people are suffering from mental prisons

I’ve never met a person who hasn’t dealt with self-limiting beliefs. It seems to be totally normal. However, the more I’ve explored this topic, the more concerned I’ve become for people—especially creative types. Too many brilliant, wonderful people are holding onto unfounded negativity about their identity, capabilities, and place in the world.

It doesn’t need to be this way!

Allan Holdsworth didn’t need to think he was a genius, or even that he was “great.” But to think so lowly of himself was ignoring the basic, factual reality that he wrote and performed unique music loved by respectable people all over the world.

You don’t have to be in a mental prison to have humility, but to be so humble as to ignore reality is just plain wrong.

There’s nothing wrong with being wrong. We should all have the intellectual humility to recognize—and even celebrate—when we are wrong. After all, fools are quick to defend themselves and wise people love correction.

The problem of being wrong about this, however, is central to how we live our lives. We have an incredible opportunity to live once, and only once. It’s not about “making the most of every day” as it is “making the most of who you are, what you’re given, and the opportunities present in our daily lives.” The world and our collective self-esteem deserve better and it won’t get better unless we decide to change.

Mental Prisons: A Self-Help Book for Nobody

After three books and thirty years in a mental prison, I’m gearing up to release my fourth book. It’s tentatively titled Mental Prisons: A Self-Help Book for Nobody. In it, I tell the story of how I went from feeling like an ugly, stupid idiot to realizing I am actually a successful person with a fantastic life.

The subtitle “A Self-Help Book for Nobody” has led to a wide variety of comments from friends and family. Some people say “it’s perfect” and “I love it.” Others tell me that it undermines the purpose of the book. The fact that it gets such a rise out of people suggests to me that it’s the right subtitle. Let me explain what I mean by it.

The book is autobiographical and I don’t try to extrapolate my experience into the function of the surrounding world. Instead, I speak very intentionally only from my own experience. There’s no advice in this book except advice I gave to myself. In that sense, it is a self-help book.

However, the book is not designed to help anyone else but me. I didn’t write it to make people feel better. Whether people are inspired by my story is somewhat beyond my control. Whether they are so inspired as to get out of their own mental prisons is really outside my control. I won’t pretend that my book will change lives or that I know enough about anything to make that happen for anyone.

What I do know is that I was able to help myself get to a healthy place. There’s no methodology or framework to use. It’s nearly 400 short chapters about my perspective and how it’s changed before and after my mental prison escape.

More information about Mental Prisons

*This is not the final cover, but it’s coming along!*

Mental Prisons is pretty different from my other books. First of all, I’ve spent much more time writing, re-writing, and editing this one than my previous books. Secondly, I actually had a lot of fun writing it. My other books may be enjoyable to others, but this is the first one I personally enjoyed writing.

It features:

21 comic strips drawn by Stefan Gasic
Book design by Dave Woodruff (the same guy who did the acclaimed design work for Failure to Fracture)
1,100+ questions to ask oneself and evaluate the mind
Color-coded pages for easy navigation
Plenty of QR codes for bridging the real and digital worlds
No advice

I hope to release Mental Prisons in the summer of 2023. Like my other books, it will be published by Stairway Press. The unfinished drafts have already gotten fantastic feedback, like “For people put off by self help books, you've removed a barrier.”