These past few weeks, I’ve felt completely brain-fried. You know that feeling. The one where you're thinking about nothing and everything at the same time. That feeling when you try to think, brainstorm, or come up with a great idea, and nothing comes to mind, no matter how hard you try. It’s more of a cognitive burnout than an emotional one. I can keep working, sure, but I don’t feel very human. It could be stress. It could be too much AI (I’ve been playing the vibe coding slot machine quite a bit recently). It could be falling out of my writing routine (which stems from shifting focus to other company problems, which leads to more stress). Great ideas and writing were a breeze for me just last month. I could sit down and write my heart out and feel like it was quality and close-to-original thinking. The longer this went on, the more the feeling compounded. Why can’t I write? Where did all my ideas go? How can I get back? That’s my primary goal with this letter. I want to provide both you and me with a guide that helps us return to our most creative state, and that’s very important, as you’ll find. My secondary goal is to show you that, even if you don’t think you’re a “creative person,” you can enter an incredibly enjoyable state of consciousness. Similar to the flow state, but potentially more potent. You aren’t focused on breezing through a set of tasks. Instead, you’re seeing the world in a completely different way, like a dog who sees grass for the first time. My tertiary goal is to give you a 7-day protocol. If you follow it to a T, you will go from feeling brain-fried to alive. It is very simple. You may scoff at it. But I recommend you try it, because most won't. While it's simple, it will be difficult to do, but the quality of your work will improve drastically. Because in today’s world, your creativity is the most scarce resource. Anyone can build anything. Anyone can think anything. Anyone can write anything. The people who will win in business, writing, art, and general quality of life, as always, will be those who can take the most creative path. The path that nobody else considered to take. I – You don’t have ideas because there’s too much interference. “I’m not a creative person.” That unfortunate and often unthought-through statement makes creativity seem like it’s some sort of talent or skill. In some ways, it is, but at its core, creativity is a natural way of being. It’s a state of consciousness. It’s a capacity that everyone has, but that capacity gets buried as time goes on. How does it get buried? With anything that narrows your mind. Creativity is a very open, relaxed state where you see connections, patterns, and possibilities that aren’t immediately obvious. It’s the act of noticing the unnoticed, which is not the same as what most think creativity is: creating something from nothing. In my eyes, there are Three Narrowers of the Mind: 1) Conditioning is the enemy of wonder. When you think of creativity, you think of children. They see the world through such fresh eyes. If a child asked ChatGPT to build a teleportation device so they can take their friends to another galaxy, nobody would bat an eye, but if you did that, people would think you’re just an idiot who doesn’t understand “how the world works.” Kids haven’t yet received the compounding negative feedback from their parents, teachers, and peers. They haven’t internalized that they have to act a certain way to fit into a broken and boring society. You must go to school. You must do your best to get a high-paying job. You must praise this God, and if you disobey, you’re going to hell. By the time most people turn 20 years old, they are the same as everyone else. Same thoughts, actions, and types of beliefs. They are going down the life path assigned to them rather than the one they chose to create. Creativity requires holding beliefs loosely and entertaining an idea without immediately rejecting or demonizing it (as everyone does on social media, where it drives engagement and facilitates groupthink). 2) Productivity as a priority is a losing game. When the 9-5 job became a thing during industrialization, productivity became the highest value. Everyone became a specialist who only learned how to place one piece of the puzzle, because if they understood how to solve the entire thing, they would be the entrepeneur not the employee. Today, everyone feels like they’re falling behind (and if you’re being real, you’re never going to catch up in a game you didn’t create. Creativity is the only way out). You have this perpetual deadline that’s always looming. A stressed mind only worries about survival, and you can’t see new connections when your nervous system is ruled by deadlines. If your life isn’t structured around optimization and efficiency (in other words if you aren’t a robot) everyone thinks you’re useless. But that’s exactly what creativity demands. Useless wandering. True boredom. Creating space for the right idea to emerg