Sam Harris didn’t walk into my life. He crashed it. Through a dodgy downloaded video that took three hours to arrive. Early 2000s. Somewhere between a blurry debate and another brutal night shift at the greenhouse, I stumbled onto a voice that made terrifying sense. At the time, my English was about as helpful as a toddler yelling at a bank manager. I watched those 8 minutes for a week, over and over again.

Back then, I was surrounded by men who thought emotional range was a weakness, and masculinity was measured in litres of alcohol consumed before collapsing. Philosophy? That was for weaklings. Most days were spent hauling crates, climbing roofs with zero safety, and pretending the boss wasn’t a sleazebag.

Meanwhile, some of my family and close friends were playing religious roulette at home. Kneeling in pews. Singing songs. Trying to get stamped into heaven by whichever church had the best lighting that week. Everyone was desperate to be chosen. Everyone wanted to belong. What they had was another club with songs to sing and a membership fee.

And then came Sam — the big brother I never had.

Not loud. Not flashy. Just devastatingly clear. Calm, deliberate, and unwilling to bullshit his way through conversations. He didn’t offer comfort. For years, it was the opposite of that. He offered me a way to be honest about my thoughts. And if you’ve spent years surrounded by noise, like I did, that’s a revolution.

Last month, I was listening to one of his podcast episodes, and he dropped a line I can’t un-hear:

“Your mind is all you really have. Your mind is the basis of your experience in each moment. And it makes sense to train it; it makes sense to understand it. It makes sense to pay attention to it directly…”

This is it.

Let’s cut the Zen fluff. For most of us, our mind isn’t our buddy. It’s not some quiet observer meditating in the background. It can be the most toxic roommate you’ll ever have. It questions everything, replays your worst moments, and shows up at 3 am to remind you of what you could have said when you got dumped last summer. It’s your own personal algorithm, tuned to insecurity and self-doubt.

We think this is fine. We call it life. We call it personality. Sometimes, we medicate it. Sometimes we drown it. And then we wonder why life feels like a treadmill pointed at a wall.

Unchecked, your mind becomes the CEO of your life. Spoiler: left unchecked, it’s a terrible CEO with terrible habits.

So where’s the practicality in all this? What happens to those thoughts left unmanaged?

The rest of the quote makes it plain:

“…until you learn to recognise thoughts as thoughts and emotions as emotions — until you break this spell of helpless identification with each new appearance in consciousness — you are just condemned to be as angry as you will be for as long as you will be.”

Translation? If you don’t figure out how to manage your inner monologue, you’re screwed. Doesn’t matter how fit, rich, or well-connected you are — if your mind is a dumpster fire, that’s the life you’re living from moment to moment.

So, no, the best predictor of your quality of life isn’t your title, investments, postcode, or how many leadership seminars you’ve attended.

It’s the state of your mind.

And if your mind is a mess, so is everything else. Doesn’t matter how many journaling apps you’ve downloaded. If your thoughts are chewing through you like malware, no app, drug, or church can save you.

But here’s the upside: you can train it.

Not with incense and mountaintop chanting. With discipline. With repetition. Like you’d train a poorly behaved dog that won’t stop barking at shadows.

And no, you don’t need to quit your job or delete your digital life. It’s simpler than that. Start noticing. Start pausing. Start questioning. You don’t have to follow every thought just because it showed up in your head with a megaphone.

Build that muscle. That discipline. Even a little. And you’ll start to see it for what it is: noise.

And the moment you do that, you’re in control again. You’re the one driving — not the one being dragged behind the car.

Next time your mind spins into chaos, try not to react. Observe. Treat it like a toddler having a meltdown in public. Let it wear itself out. Then move on.
No prayers to make. No sitting in strange positions. No fees to pay.
Stop. Breathe. Observe.

This isn’t enlightenment. It’s hygiene. Mental hygiene. And like physical hygiene, the people around you benefit too. You get clearer. Kinder. More effective. Less of a walking panic attack. Everybody wins.

What’s at stake isn’t just your peace of mind. It’s your performance. Your relationships. Your ability to make good decisions when things get hard and complicated. And they will.

So, I’ll leave you where we started.

Your mind is all you really have.

Thank you, Sam.
A.