Impostor syndrome is like an alien being living rent-free in your consciousness.

Writer Tim Denning talks about how to kick out the unwelcome guest, for good:

1: Create evidence of your abilities – every little triumph should be celebrated

2: Keep taking action – self doubt can’t creep in when you’re usefully busy

3: Think what you used to be like – you’ve come a long way, baby!

4: Be kinder to yourself – slack can always be cut.

5: Stop imagining future scenarios – that’s called worrying.

6: Remember you’ll learn and grow – even from the worst that happens.

This crazy person who’s talking you down has no place in your life.

Just tell them you don’t hang around with the likes of them. 

See you around
Jonny

PS: I’m cooking up something big for the start of next month. It’s called the Corporate Consulting Launch Pack, and it’s the A-Z blueprint for everything you need to do to win your first lucrative corporate engagement. It’s priced so you can afford it, and you won’t want to miss it.

Reply with “CCLP” and I’ll make sure you get a personal note from me when it’s ready

The guy James Flynn, who was so smart they named an effect after him, recognised a reversal in the general trend of people getting smarter over the last century.

He even speculated why that might be happening:

“…the abnormal drop in teenage IQ could be due to youth culture having “stagnated” or even dumbed down.”

But of course we knew that – us smart, older folks, right? And because we’re so smart, we maybe definitely know what’s causing it.

Everything that used to require us to study, learn and remember stuff can now be accomplished by Google or AI. We’ve delegated our organic memory to computer chips.

I used to carry 20-50 phone numbers in my head. Now, I can barely remember my date of birth.

But if it were just about data storage, it wouldn’t be so bad.

The real drop in IQ comes when we lose the ability for deep thinking, analysis and understanding. 

That’s why I refuse to use technology as a proxy for my creative process, and you should too. Here’s a short checklist for your own IQ preservation: 

1: Force yourself to recall facts, figures and names without checking a screen. Don’t accept you’ll always have your device to rely on.

2: Draft content manually first before you ask AI to intervene to edit and improve. The best work always come from your human brain.

3: Try solving problems yourself before asking for tech support. Use AI as a coach or collaborator, not as a replacement for your ideas.

4: Take a continuing interest in the world around you. Travel, meet people and instigate meaningful conversation and healthy debate.

5: Celebrate and develop what makes you the most evolved intellect in the known universe – empathy, kindness and a thirst for knowledge.

We are uniquely privileged to be alive at the dawn of the Age Of AI.

Don’t squander the opportunity to become even smarter, by forgetting how smart you used to be.

Love you lots
Jonny

PS: There’s a bunch of people who need your smart brain to help them live a happy fulfilled lives. They’re employees in companies and organisations, suffering a crisis in workplace wellbeing these days.

Reply to this email with “I’m Smart” and I’ll send you a free eBook all about getting into corporate wellbeing consulting.

Bill Gates reads 50 books a year, Elon Musk said he learned to build rockets because “I read books” and Warren Buffet devotes 5 hours a day to reading.

Here’s why reading real books is an essential part of a rich, fulfilled life:

• The more you read, the more you know
• It’s a brain workout
• Flipping physical pages helps context and understanding
• It’s a stress-buster
• It improves your memory
• It expands vocabulary and broadens analytical skills

It’s no use just reading any old book though.

Books about other people score top in terms of self-improvement.

Biographies open the door on successful lives and let us learn how greatness thinks, not just view its results.

Pick your five heroes and read their life stories this month.

You could be closer to them than you know.

Love you lots
Jonny

PS: My current read

This is the proposition that truly stupid people are too stupid to know how stupid they are.

Unconscious ignorance, if you like.

A much higher level of awareness is a common trait in hugely intelligent people.

They ALWAYS accept their limitations, and how little they – or anybody else – really understands about almost everything.

So here are some hacks to help you navigate all this: 

• Continually and honestly calibrate the extent of your capabilities
• If someone else can do part of your work better than you, let them
• Accept that you can’t be good at everything, and that you shouldn’t even try
• Don’t make overblown claims about what you know, and how you can help people
• Give others credit, free from envy, when they display competence and skills beyond your own

The smartest thing I ever did was accepting how dumb I really am. 

Love you lots
Jonny

PS: One area where I know more than most is in corporate consulting, having worked with companies worth multiple billions in total. It’s a great life and, particularly in corporate wellbeing, it’s perfectly attainable for you too.

If you’re unsure how to get into that world, reply with “Wellbeing” and I’ll send you an eBook all about it, with my compliments.

…is way less than the trouble with having none. 

And if you’re reading this, you’re probably working hard to serve your clients, create an impact and build your bank balance.

But what if all your hard work was in vain?

What if making money was never about hard work at all? What if it just required a small shift in your attitude to wealth?

The biggest change in my life came when I realised there was a virtuous circle around doing good and earning money.

That meant I could drop all my silly beliefs about what money actually means:

• Rich people must have done something bad to get rich
• Money corrupts good intentions
• Money is the root of all evil
• Filthy lucre
• Dirty money

Oh, really?

Once I realised none of that was true, I started doing amazing things for and with money.

I provided jobs and life-force for 200 people in my business
I created a wonderful life for me and my family
I supported good causes

Of course, all of that required some strategy, and decisive action. But none of it would have been possible if I resisted wealth.

Money doesn’t buy happiness, but poverty buys nothing.

And being poor is no way to exact revenge on all those smug, rich people.

Love you lots
Jonny

PS: Early next month, I’ll be running my groundbreaking workshop all about earning more money, more easily, called “Thriving In Corporate Wellbeing” – [AKA – Tap Into The New Coaching Paradigm For 2025].

It’s FREE, but you’ll need to bookmark the date, and you can hit the VIP early-bird registration here: https://cib.global/ticw/

Here’s an extract from one of his latest pieces on preparedness, achievement and perfectionism. I’m sharing it with you, as “getting started” can seem like an impossible leap in our profession.

Whether it’s a new course, an outreach strategy or even an entire business career, many important projects become incredibly vulnerable to the death blow of procrastination.

Michael ~

Think about how we typically approach development:

 

“I need to take a course before I can start this project”
“I’m not ready to write professionally until I’ve mastered these techniques”
“Let me practice more before I show anyone my work”
“I need to fix my weaknesses before I can excel”

 

These seemingly reasonable statements all share the same hidden assumption: that improvement happens separately from performance.

 

We believe we must first become better in private before we can be effective in public.

If I had a dollar for every time a skilled coach or consultant claimed any of those things as the reason they’re not earning money yet, I’d probably have more dollars than any of them earned to this day.

In summary:

• You already have everything you need to succeed.
• Talk to someone every day who looks like your next ideal client.
• Nothing has to happen first.

You’re welcome, and thanks Michael.

Love you lots
Jonny

Which resonate with you?

• Rejection is redirection, not failure
• Everyone is struggling; it’s just invisible
• If you could hear people’s thoughts, you’d see we’re all crazy
• You’re doing the best you can
• You have more than you think
• You don’t have to wait. You can start now
• Give love and you’ll receive love
• Worry can expand and contract
• Don’t be ashamed of the masks you wear
• Picture your worst day. Your last day will be worse

But you know the best thing of all about your life?

It’s yours.

Of all the billions of combinations of eggs, sperms and genes that could have emerged from your mother’s womb, it was you who won the jackpot.

You’re here, and that should fill you with unlimited joy. 

Love you lots
Jonny

PS: Did you see the “Content That Sells” workshop on Monday? It was a humdinger, and I’m releasing a handful of recordings for people who had a good reason not to attend live. Reply with your excus…err…reason, and I’ll let you have one if it sounds believable.  

Author of Willpower Doesn’t Work, Benjamin P. Hardy, writes about how your morning habits set the tone for a successful, productive day.

Or otherwise.

Appreciating that “quick, small wins” can give a dramatic boost to your confidence, motivation and mindset, here’s some stuff to try:

• Make. Your bed. Properly
• Drink. A big glass of water. That cold trickle feels like a head-to-toe energy charge
• Read. For 20 minutes BFB [Before Facebook]
• Write. Something for your ideal client. Like this
• Meditate. Right after waking is the best time
• Walk. Ten minutes in the fresh morning air is all you need
• Music. A shot of something that inspires you
• Hug. One word: Oxytocin.

You don’t have to do all those things, and there are many more.

Building power into your day takes conscious action.

So, do SOMETHING, right?

The computer’s like a brain, right?

A big flaky, vulnerable brain, that we look after like a baby. Heck, I even dust out my cooling fans every few months.

I’m sure you’re the same, at least a bit.

So why the hell don’t we look after our ACTUAL brains that well?

When was the last time you did any essential brain-maintenance, like:

• Staying away from rolling news
• Stopping comparing yourself to others
• Clearing out the junk in your life and business
• Deliberately refreshing your mind, habits and results
• Super-hydrating to replenish and cool your overheated brain-cells
• Checking if the beliefs you held last year are still valid and true this year
• Feeding it with actual brain-food instead of deadly sugars and other toxins
• Spending enough time in sleep mode to stop your head spinning for a while?

Also, much though we look after our computers, we get to replace them every-so-often, and we can never do that with our brains.

Next time you run a virus scan on your device, do one on your head.

It’s indescribably more valuable.

Then you know how you reach out to grab your phone, then snooze it, or even switch it off?

And you know how you open your phone, check emails, social media and your newsfeed?

Well, did you know that’s screwing with your brain just at the point when it needs calm, serenity and space to boot up properly? Feeding all that data, information and bright stuff into your newly-switched-on organ-of-thought is really no way to treat it.

It’s like trying to start your PC with a peanut-butter sandwich jammed in the DVD drawer. Well, maybe not, but it’d make an interesting experiment.

Let me know if you try it.

Here’s a better idea for your wake-up call, if you need one:

Leave your phone charging in another room.
Buy an old-school alarm clock for your bedside.
Get up when it goes off.
Have a cup of tea or a green smoothie.
Read something off some paper.
Tell someone you love them.
Move about a bit. Or a lot.

Then, 30 minutes in, you can look at your phone.

You have my permission, and your brain can thank me later.

“Self-pity is easily the most destructive of the non-pharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality.”

Sadly, I see all too many coaches and therapists acting like their lives are grim and hopeless.

There are a number of things wrong with that:

• It’s not true. This is the best time to be alive, full of hope and possibilities like never before
• It’s visible to clients, who’ll run a mile rather than work with you
• It lowers your expectations of positive results, so you engineer failure

Look, I get it.

Life isn’t all a bed of geraniums, but it is 99% what you make it.

In its most potent form, self-pity makes you feel ok with creating a life you don’t want.

And that’s a twisting of reality worthy of an hallucinatory narcotic, right?

Jonny

Below is one question from a quiz that takes 120 seconds to complete.

Simply choose which one of the following describes you best:

1. I regularly meet expectations I set for myself, as well as expectations others have of me.
2. I only meet expectations that make sense to me.
3. I am really good about meeting expectations others have of me, but I’m not so great at meeting expectations I set for myself.
4. I don’t like any expectations from anyone, myself or others.

Here’s a link to the full quiz online. 

Try it, and learn some cool new stuff about yourself!

FYI – I got REBEL – how about you?

A little book I’ve been reading, by the redoubtable T. Harv Eker, mind coach, visionary and writer.

If you’ve read a few of these Daily Brain Tattoos, you’ll know that I’m all about managing your mind and your thoughts to focus on living your greatest life, full of fun and free of stress.

There are few as good as Eker at describing the inner game leading to the higher self, so I’ll let his words do the talking.

Feel free to download and enjoy his 33-page mini masterpiece!

YOU’RE WELCOME!

Jonny

You’re doing too many different things.

Humans are terrible at multi-tasking. In fact, we simply can’t, and don’t do it.

When we’re juggling different tasks, we do no more than switch sequentially from one thing to another, destroying flow, inspiration, and our ability to give the best of ourselves.

Here’s just some of the science around the results of trying to multi-task:

• Impacts your short-term memory: A 2011 research study from the University of California San Francisco found multitasking negatively impacts your working memory—your brain’s “Scratchpad” used to manage and focus on key information.
• Leads to increased anxiety: Neuroscientists say that multitasking literally drains your mind’s energy reserves, causing you to lose focus and become more anxious.
• Inhibits creative thinking: Added anxiety and a lack of brain “space” caused by multitasking can also cause you to lose your ability to think outside the box. To be creative, our minds need space to digest or “incubate” new ideas.
• Stops you from getting into a state of flow: Flow is the state of mind where we’re so focused on a task that our productivity skyrockets. (In one example, executives said they were 500% more productive while in flow). However, flow requires sustained effort and focus. Something multitasking gets in the way of.
• Causes more mistakes and less productivity: Multiple studies have found that multitasking causes people to take longer to do simple tasks, drop your IQ by an average of 10 points, and can even have the same negative impact as losing a night’s sleep.

Maybe it’s time to break the mould, clear the decks and close off most of your rabbit-holes.

[That’s three ridiculous metaphors in one sentence. I’m on fire.]

Anyhoo, here’s how to achieve greatness, in the coming seven days.

Spend this glorious weekend setting one single goal for the week ahead. Then on Monday, launch yourself into it with passion, vigour and total commitment. 

Don’t let anything or anyone distract you from it.

Let me know how it’s worked out this time next Saturday.

Deal?  

The more you train, focus and commit, the more you win.

Also, in life and in sport, you’re always your own biggest challenger.

Here’s what I mean.

YOU:

• You can develop a fitness habit, expanding your healthspan to its full potential
• You can read a hundred books a year, becoming ultra-smart, cultured and wise
• You can learn all the tech skills needed to lead and thrive in the 21st century
• You can practice your craft, so you leverage your talent to become world-class
• You can charge what you’re worth, and never have to worry about money again
• You can choose to create a freedom lifestyle, working when and where you want

ALSO YOU:  

• You can skip the gym when the weather’s bad, huddling on the sofa with pizza and wine
• You can decide you know enough, as your brain’s already full of stuff you haven’t used yet
• You can describe yourself as a “technophobe”, so others sympathise and help you out
• You can give up trying to market yourself, so your talent withers on the vine from under-use
• You can decide to be “kind” to everyone who needs you, whether or not they can afford to pay
• You can accept where you are, because people like you never get to live a dream lifestyle

Guess which version of you is safer, more likely to succeed, and easier to maintain.

It’s the same one who never learnt to kick a ball, jump a hurdle or swim a length.

That’s right, you win again. 

In fact, the very notion of “average” intelligence requires that there’s a variance in smarts across the population.

Having spent 50-or-so years people-watching, calibrating their capacity for useful, rational and inspiring behaviour, I’ve filled numerous journals with observations and notes on this very topic.

Today, for the first time, I’ve distilled some of the traits I’ve discovered which seem to follow around the brightest people I’ve met.

Test yourself and award one point for a yes, zero for a no:

1: Do you talk to yourself?
2: Are you funny?
3: Does gossip and small talk bore you?
4: Are you curious about all the wonders of the world?
5: Do you create more than you consume?
6: Do you think before you speak?
7: Have you chosen a good life over one beset with problems?
8: Are you doing what you love to do?
9: Do you question rules and prefer to make your own?
10: Are you open to being proven wrong on anything, anytime?

That’s not a complete list – there’s a whole book in this – but tot up your score and see where you measure up.

Anything more than 7 is pretty smart by my reckoning. 

Love you lots
Jonny

There’s no point in inventing another calendar, and it makes perfect sense to create an ebb and flow in tune with the way the world naturally works.

As we head into Autumn 2023, there’s lots to accomplish.

It’s not only about ending the year on the highest of high peaks, but it’s about getting set up, at least in outline, for how much higher we can scale in 2024.

At this point, there’s literally no reason not to sketch out your wildest dreams of abundance. Here’s some ideas:

• If you’re sick of living with cold winters and rainy summers, where could you move to that would guarantee sunshine?
• If you want to double your revenue, what would you need to do to achieve just that?
• If you want a dream car/house/[insert desired stuff here], picture it, cost it and target it, on paper
• If finding a perfect business partner is your goal for next year, get out and meet people, now
• If you’d like to contact Richard Branson and ask for his help, what’s stopping you?

In fact, all you ever need to do to meet any goal is make a plan and execute it, good and hard.

What’s your wildest dream for 2023?

Jonny

PS – Here’s a wild gig. Working with me for three months, on YOUR 2023 dreams.

• Social media
• Writing
• Conversations
• Positive mindset
• Optimal health

…and much more. But there’s one thing they never mentioned, which I’ve noticed as a common factor in the daily habits of fabulously successful people in our profession.

Obsession. 

All the high-flyers I’ve known, including the remarkable folks I met in Thailand last week, are obsessed with the important stuff:

• Achieving client results
• Driving efficiency and simplicity
• Doing whatever it takes, for as long as it takes
• Keeping healthy boundaries and saying “NO” to almost everything
• Believing in themselves, their work, and their ability to overcome any obstacle

In short, they’re 100% all-in, 100% of the time.

How obsessed are you? 

“If I took a watering can and watered the garden bed; would the weeds grow or the flowers grow? Both. Water has no ability to discriminate between the weeds and the flowers. Whatever you water grows.”

And it’s the same with what you focus on in your life and business:

• Your bad debt will grow if you spend time worrying about it
• The haters will hate more if you feed them
• You’ll get really good at procrastination if you practice it
• Hours wasted scrolling newsfeeds will multiply till that’s all you’re doing
• Trying to mend toxic relationships instead of ending them will make them blossom like nettles

As racing drivers and bikers know for sure, you’ll hit what you’re looking at.

Better focus on the open space of future exponential abundance, rather than the cage-bars of your current reality. 

You’re changing the world. 

That’s a big statement, but I know what you DO, I know what you ARE, and I know the impact you have with each and every client.

You move them all.

Sometimes a bit, often times a lot, and sometimes with a massive, transformational shift.

By no means all professions enjoy this privilege. 

Heck, most “jobs” are actively designed to ensure their organisations maintain the status quo.

That’s why they have to hire external consultants if they want to change anything.

Transformation isn’t natural to most people, nor to the worldview they’re locked into.

But it is for you.

You’re changing the world, every day, one glorious client at a time.  

Don’t ever forget that.

Next time you’re in the mood to kick your own butt, give yourself a pat on the head instead.

You’ve earned it. 

“Why do you think people say they want to achieve something and then put in no serious effort to get it?”

I didn’t expect such a rapturous response from the community.

Here’s a selection of the answers:

Fear of failure
Fear of success
Because they don’t want it more than they want something else
Others tell them they can’t do it
It’s easier to say things than do them
They don’t have the right people to help them
When they see the cost they no longer want it
Humans are built to stick with what they know
Mind and body not aligned owing to past trauma
The price is higher than the prize
It can be too overwhelming to start
Because they’re bluffing
They’re not aligned with the outcome
Missing clarity, belief and work ethic
Easily discouraged when things don’t work out
It requires trust when there’s no real evidence
Procrastination disease
Just want life to be handed to them without any effort
Our culture teaches entitlement rather than hard work
Outcome motivation without process motivation
They just want it – they haven’t chosen it

…and many more.

So, in summary:

Get brave, aligned, motivated, productive and adventurous. Work hard, trust the process, ignore the naysayers and never give up.

Sounds easy…not!

In fact, when you add all those reasons/excuses together, it’s no surprise how few online coaches and therapists succeed in meeting their goals.

Heck, many never even get started.

One thing’s for sure: you can massively increase the odds of success if you get help from someone who’s already done what you want to do, and is already living the life you’d like to live.

At this point I don’t mind if that’s me or someone else, but go find someone who knows this stuff, and knows how hard it is. 

It’s the ultimate shortcut, believe me. 

It’s since sold 30 million copies in 50 countries, and is by any standards a publishing phenomenon.

The book is not without its critics, including scientists Carmichael and Radford who described it as “a time-worn trick of mixing banal truisms with magical thinking and presenting it as some sort of hidden knowledge.”

Me, I just think The Secret is a mandate for hope over action. 

Sure, you’ve got to WANT “it”.

And of course it helps if you really, really BELIEVE “it’s” going to happen.

But here’s the pin to burst your bubble – the cosmos isn’t listening.

In fact, the cosmos couldn’t care less about any of us.

The only thing that’s actually going to deliver you any kind of success is ACTION.

Determined, progressive, relentless daily action creating something useful to your goals.

And that’s no Secret at all.

After all, until you’ve tried something new, you have no idea whether it’ll work or not.

Pretty much every project we launch has more ways to go wrong than right.

Elon Musk really didn’t know if his recyclable rocket would come back to earth softly, or as a $100m pile of scrap.

So, well done for doubting yourself.

I can’t tell you it’s definitely going to work out.

But I can tell you this with 100% certainty:

It won’t work if you don’t do it. 

That’s why imposter syndrome is nothing to fear, unless it stops you.

I used to think I could hustle all-day-long and get more done.

Now I realise that’s just silly, because of the therapeutic benefits of just letting your mind wander.

This is why we have light-bulb moments in the shower, or while we’re jogging.

Here’s the sciencey explanation for that. 

And if you want to try to prove it for yourself, don’t focus deeply on a task for more than 15 minutes before taking a 5-minute break to do a whole lot of nuttin’.

Go swing in the trees, drink something, meditate, run, play music…anything but the job in hand.

When you come back, you’ll be thinking more clearly, and the creativity will be flowing. 

“Tradition is just peer pressure from dead people”

…said a wise man, somewhere.

And why is that relevant to us?

Simple.

Because we often persevere with things we really shouldn’t:

• Somebody told us to do it
• It’s always been done that way
• We learned a system someone else thought up
• We stick with our failed strategies, hoping they’ll work soon
• We hang out with old mates, even when we have a new agenda

Logically, we shouldn’t feel peer pressure from anyone, dead or alive.

Especially ourselves. 

Psychologists call that racket your Unconstructive Repetitive Thoughts, or URTs.

It’s a common affliction, but don’t take comfort in that.

If you allow your URTs room to breathe and develop, they can consume you, leading to procrastination, stress, and complete overwhelm.

When you hear the deafening roar of this negative beast, you’ll need to take swift action to quell it.

So, take a pen and paper and write down all the stuff that’s bugging you.

Then, sit quietly and contemplate your list, grading your problems on the following scale:

1. Solvable immediately – so do it
2. Solvable later – so make a plan
3. Unsolvable – so cross it through and forget it

The cathartic effect of that logical exercise is to turn down the volume of the URTs between your ears.

If not to zero, at least to the level where you can get something useful done.

Jonny

This is the process by which another person’s attitude, behaviour and actions directly influence yours.

I’ve been auditing my relationships with some of the people I spend most time with, and there may be some changes afoot.

If you’re up for doing this too, here are a few points to ponder:

1. Do the people around you share your worldview, or do their values substantively clash with yours?
2. Is the energy flow all one-way – are you propping them up emotionally more than they you?
3. Are they critical of the decisions you make, for no better reason than mindless contradiction?
4. Are their goals and ambitions way smaller than yours?
5. Do you come away from every interaction feeling more negative than before?

All this stuff can exert a huge toll on your metal and physical health, so if one or more of the above apply in any relationship you currently hold, ask yourself this:

Am I prepared to delay my success for the sake of spending time around this person?  

Your answer may guide you to making changes, sooner than later.

Remember that one you really enjoyed reading?

Read it again, and the one on your shelf next to it, and the next one.

I guarantee you’ll be reading with a fresh pair of eyes, and the insights may well be even greater this time.

If you have access to any of these:

How To Win Friends And Influence People
The Art Of War
The Four Agreements
Think And Grow Rich
This Is Marketing
The 16-Word Sales Letter
Jonny Hates Selling (of course!)
The Way Of The Leader
The Chimp Paradox
Tribe Of Mentors

…give them another go.

As the wise man said: you’ll never swim in the same river twice, because the river’s not the same, and you’re not the same.  

Jonny

A little book I’ve been reading, by the redoubtable T. Harv Eker, mind coach, visionary and writer.

If you’ve read a few of these Daily Brain Tattoos, you’ll know that I’m all about managing your mind and your thoughts to focus on living your greatest life, full of fun and free of stress.

There are few as good as Eker at describing the inner game leading to the higher self, so I’ll let his words do the talking.

Feel free to download and enjoy his 33-page mini masterpiece!

YOU’RE WELCOME!

Jonny

Then you know how you reach out to grab your phone, kill the alarm, check emails, social media and your newsfeed?

Well, did you know that’s screwing with your brain just at the point when it needs calm, serenity and space to boot up properly? 

Feeding all that data, information and bright stuff into your newly-switched-on organ-of-thought is really no way to treat it.

It’s like trying to start your PC with a peanut-butter sandwich jammed in the DVD drawer.

Well, maybe not, but it’d make an interesting experiment.

Let me know if you try it.

Here are some better ideas for your wake-up call, if you need one at all. 

1: Leave your phone charging in another room.
2: Buy an old-school alarm clock for your bedside.
3: Get up when it goes off.
4: Have a cup of tea or a green smoothie.
5: Read something off some paper.
6: Tell someone you love them. Aww.
7: Move about a bit. Or a lot.

Then, 30 minutes in, you can look at your phone.

You have my permission, and your brain can thank me later.

Jonny