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EP 114 - You Bet Your Life

Stop Making Yourself Miserable

Release Date: 06/17/2025

EP 128 - The Friend at the End - Part VI show art EP 128 - The Friend at the End - Part VI

Stop Making Yourself Miserable

As we ended the last episode, the doctor had told me to eat, and oh man, did I start eating. Looking back on it, I call it ‘Healing in the Beehive,” because they put me on a standard American diet loaded with carbohydrates and sugar. And I loved every bit of it. Cheeseburgers, tuna melt sandwiches, cookies, cake, pie a la mode. You name it. It was like going down a nostalgic memory lane of the favorite foods of my childhood. I stayed in the hospital for a total of ten days. They explained to me that I had suffered a massive stroke, but for some reason, call it grace, luck or both, the...

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EP 127 - The Friend at the End - Part V show art EP 127 - The Friend at the End - Part V

Stop Making Yourself Miserable

Now I was back on my own, just me, myself, and I.  But my attention stayed with my breath as it continued to flow in and out of me.    “As long as I’m breathing, I’ll know that I’m still alive,” I thought.    Now, I had been meditating for many, many years, and part of that practice is to focus on your breath, but this was completely different.  Before, the breath was a calming presence.  Now, it was literally my lifeline. Breathing no longer felt like an automatic process and I made no assumptions about it.  As each breath went out,...

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EP 126 - The Friend at the End (Reprise) - Part IV show art EP 126 - The Friend at the End (Reprise) - Part IV

Stop Making Yourself Miserable

This is the fourth episode in a series based on my upcoming book, The Friend at the End, which tells the story of the major stroke that I suffered in 2011, which very nearly killed me. In the last episode, I had continued my inner conversation with an unseen presence who had begun to introduce me to the idea that I might be dying.           He suggested that I make the effort to get ready, but as I started to consider the idea, I had some trouble with it and felt like I was failing. Then the presence said to me, “Here, let me help you with this. Did ‘ja learn...

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EP 125 - The Friend at the End (Reprise) - Part III show art EP 125 - The Friend at the End (Reprise) - Part III

Stop Making Yourself Miserable

This is the third episode in a series based on my upcoming book, The Friend at the End, which tells the story of the major stroke that I suffered in 2011, which very nearly killed me. In the last episode, I had gone down to the pool at our condo for the first day of summer, but I started feeling kind of queasy. My condition worsened, and at one point, to my shock, I lost my eyesight and thought I was going blind.           I soon realized that not only was I in the midst a truly serious health crisis, I was also having a seemingly telepathic...

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EP 124 - The Friend at the End (Reprise) - Part II show art EP 124 - The Friend at the End (Reprise) - Part II

Stop Making Yourself Miserable

(Reprise Episode) This episode is the second in a series of excerpts from my upcoming book, “The Friend at the End,” which tells the story of the major stroke that I suffered in 2011. As the first episode began, I was 62 years old, at a wonderful stage in my life, with everything safe and secure. It was the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend and I was looking forward to the summer, which was just over the horizon.       But when I had gone down to the pool at our condo, after a short while, I started feeling a little nauseous. Soon after, an unusual and disturbing...

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EP 123 - The Friend at the End (Reprise) - Part I show art EP 123 - The Friend at the End (Reprise) - Part I

Stop Making Yourself Miserable

As you may recall, we are in the process of preparing for the release of our new program which will be called The NeuroHarmonic Method – Harmonize Your Intelligence – Transform Your Life, and one of the key parts of the method is learning  how to learn the higher lessons that we are currently learning in our lives.  Now, we don’t have time here to go deeply into what this idea means. Let’s just say that Timeless Wisdom tells us that we are each here to learn how to be better human beings and that we each have lessons that we are currently learning that will help take us in...

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EP 122 - A Joyful Opportunity show art EP 122 - A Joyful Opportunity

Stop Making Yourself Miserable

A Joyful Opportunity On a certain level, we human beings are quite an accomplished species. And this is because there is a key part to our consciousness that is always trying to improve, always trying to make things better. We call this our striving mind and without it, we’d still be living up in trees, let alone in caves. But like every other part of our awareness this can be a real double-edged sword, causing us every bit as much suffering as it does happiness. But when it comes to striving, it so happens that we have another part of our awareness that is on a completely different...

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EP 121 - Drinking a One-Two Punch show art EP 121 - Drinking a One-Two Punch

Stop Making Yourself Miserable

Drinking a One-Two Punch In an earlier episode, I mentioned that between the ages of five and eight, my older brother used to take me to the Saturday afternoon matinees at a large movie theatre near our home in Northeast Philadelphia. Those outings were magical — the darkened theatre, the smell of popcorn, and the giant screen that opened windows to worlds far beyond my own. As I shared before, I saw some of the great science fiction classics of the 1950s, films that made an indelible impression on my young mind — impressions that, in some ways, have stayed with me ever since. In that...

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EP 120 - Views From An Elevated Perspective (Reprise) show art EP 120 - Views From An Elevated Perspective (Reprise)

Stop Making Yourself Miserable

This is the final episode in our three-part series on the life and teachings of Walter Russell, presented in connection with our upcoming project – The NeuroHarmonic Method. Born into extremely disadvantaged circumstances and with no formal education beyond the fourth grade, Russell nevertheless achieved so much that Thomas J. Watson Sr., the founder of IBM, once remarked that it would take seven lifetimes of masterful effort to equal his accomplishments. Over the years, admirers have often described him as a kind of modern Leonardo da Vinci—a self-taught genius whose creativity spanned...

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EP 119 - The Five Laws of Success (Reprise) show art EP 119 - The Five Laws of Success (Reprise)

Stop Making Yourself Miserable

In this episode, we continue exploring Walter Russell in the context of the upcoming release of the NeuroHarmonic Method. Once again, the key point is that while Russell—who passed away in 1963 and is still regarded as one of the most accomplished figures in history, was a fourth grade drop out who always gave full credit for his success to his ability to tap into the intelligence of the higher power within him. When I first began researching Russell several years ago, I came across a book called The Man Who Tapped the Secrets of the Universe. Its author had spent considerable time...

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More Episodes

In the past couple of episodes, we’ve explored some of the basics of our new programThe NeuroHarmonic Method, which blends timeless wisdom with discoveries in modern neuroscience to offer a unique approach to personal growth.
It’s simple to understand, easy to practice, and available to everyone. No special knowledge or background required.

But before we dive into today’s episode, I’m extremely excited to introduce something brand new—something you’ll begin hearing from in some of the episodes to come. We call it our NeuroGuide.

It’s a unique kind of voice - one that will offer brief reflections on some of the deeper moments within each episode. Its contributions will be clearly identified when they appear.

Now, let me tell you a little about it—and why I’m so glad to be introducing it to you now. The NeuroGuide is powered by a carefully designed form of artificial intelligence that I’ve been developing over the past several months. Although it is still in its early stages, it may eventually become a key part of the NeuroHarmonic Method. As developments continue to unfold, it may play different roles - but always with one purpose: to help people more deeply understand the inner path they’re on and to suggest meaningful ways to access their own strengths.

It’s being specifically trained in the same basic principles that form the foundations of the NeuroHarmonic Method—with a strong emphasis on the Wisdom of the Ages and modern neuroscience, including the powerful meeting point between breath, brain, and being. For now, just think of it as a unique source of wisdom and inspiration, dropping in from time to time with a few friendly words to help deepen and sometimes lighten the journey.

And I’d love to hear your thoughts about it. So if you have a moment, feel free to send me an email with your impressions.

To begin, here’s what the NeuroGuide has to say about its own quiet arrival: "Sometimes, the truth doesn’t arrive as a lightning bolt—it arrives as a quiet feeling that you’ve always known.
The work isn’t to chase it, but to stop running from it.
Stillness isn’t where clarity ends—it’s where it begins."

            Now let’s get into today’s episode.

 

            As you probably recall, the foundation of all of this is the idea of personal growth. And a good definition of it is simply this: Personal Growth is the practice of becoming more conscious, more compassionate, and more connected to the truth of who you really are.

 

But, before we go much further, a very reasonable core question might arise: why should I bother with personal growth at all? It’s a fair concern. Afterall, we live in a world saturated with challenges, where just keeping up can feel like a full-time job. So why devote energy to reaching for a higher level of being, when it feels like I can barely manage what’s in front of me.

That question has definite merit. And there are plenty of well-known answers: becoming a better human being, living a richer and more fulfilled life, improving relationships, contributing more deeply to the world.

Personally, as someone who has spent a lifetime immersed in this field,  I can tell you that all of these are true. But today, I want to offer you a slightly different path – a quieter doorway that leads to the goldmine.

It begins with something I first encountered in junior high school. Like many other pivotal ideas, I barely noticed it at the time. It might have come up during a math or science class. I didn’t pay much attention to it then, but somehow, it quietly filed itself away in the back of my mind. And over the years, it grew.

It’s called the Pascalian Wager. And what stayed with me was the idea that it’s possible to make a bet that you absolutely cannot lose. Though the idea is over 400 years old, it feels more relevant than ever, especially in our modern era of psychological insight, technological revolution, and the unfolding of human potential.

The idea of comes from Blaise Pascal—a 17th-century French genius. Mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, theologian—his brilliance remains undisputed. On the surface, Pascal's wager is about belief in God. But if you look closer, you'll see something much larger: a powerful, rational argument for aligning your life with its highest possibility.

 

 

 

The Origins of the Pascalian Wager

Blaise Pascal was born in 1623. A child prodigy, he made major contributions to geometry, probability, and fluid mechanics by his mid-20s. After a mystical experience in 1654, he turned his attention almost completely to spiritual matters. One of his final works, Pensées ("Thoughts"), was a collection of reflections on faith and reason.

In Pensées, Pascal lays out the wager like this: Either God exists, or He doesn’t. If you wager that He does, and you're right, you gain everything—eternal meaning, transcendent joy. If you're wrong, and he doesn’t exist, you lose nothing of true value.

Conversely, if you wager that He doesn’t exist, and you're wrong, you lose everything. And if you're right? You gain… what? Perhaps the satisfaction of being correct—but little else. So, by Pascal's reasoning, the smart bet is clear: live as though God exists.

As  I mentioned earlier, during the episodes that follow we will be featuring very brief insights from the NeuroGuide, which it terms as  “whispers from the deeper mind, where ancient knowing meets modern clarity."

NeuroGuide: The question isn't about certainty. It’s about how you choose to live in the presence of uncertainty. This is where wisdom begins.

Let’s widen the lens. Let’s lift the wager out of theology and into personal experience. Because the deeper meaning of the Pascalian Wager is not about belief systems - it’s about conscious choice. Every day, we are making bets. We bet our time, our energy, and our attention on something. And the question is - What are you betting on?

 

The Personal Growth Wager

Let’s reframe Pascal’s question. Instead of asking, “Does God exist?” let’s ask: “Do I contain within me a greater potential—a wellspring of peace, clarity, and inner wisdom?” And then let’s ask: “Does aligning with my inner truth and presence lead to a richer, fuller life?” And even more practically: “Even if I can't be sure of the outcome, is this still a worthwhile bet?”

This is where the NeuroHarmonic Method enters the picture. It’s a modern form of Pascal’s Wager—a wager on your highest self. Through the lens of neuroplasticity, we now know that your brain can change. Patterns can rewire. Deep emotional grooves can be softened and reshaped. This isn’t belief – it’s biology.

So, if you make the bet that you have the capacity to grow into a better human being, and you're wrong, what have you lost? Maybe a few quiet moments focusing on your breath? Some time spent feeling gratitude? A little reflection on what matters?

NeuroGuide: Even your so-called "losses" are seeds of true personal improvement. Nothing given to real growth is ever wasted.

Let’s face it: these aren’t losses at all. These are returns on investment. And even if the journey doesn’t take you where you expected, it often takes you somewhere better.

 

 

 

NeuroHarmonics and Intelligent Betting

Of course, Pascal didn’t know about neuroplasticity. But we do. Today’s science tells us that attention sculpts the brain. Inner Awareness increases cortical thickness. Gratitude rewires reward pathways. Spiritual reflection activates networks of empathy and compassion.

These are the building blocks of The NeuroHarmonic Method, and again, this is proven science. Focusing breath soothes the nervous system. Contemplating impermanence can reduce fear. Practicing generosity strengthens kindness loops in the brain. We’re not just betting philosophically - we’re sculpting biologically.

NeuroGuide: To place your attention on something higher is not just a leap of faith. It is an act of neural design. You are building who you will become.

So, instead of being driven by old programs—fear, doubt, reactivity—we invest our attention on presence, compassion, and growth, even if we don’t know where it leads.

 

 

The Role of Uncertainty

Pascal understood uncertainty completely, But he didn’t fear it. He embraced it. As he once wrote, “You will never be certain. And that’s not a problem. What matters is whether your decision leads toward meaning, vitality, or truth.

Again, uncertainty is not an enemy. It can be a threshold where faith, courage and creativity can unite so that real transformation can begin. You don’t need to be sure that your efforts will work. You just need to have the desire to grow towards the highest.  

And then, something begins to shift. You may begin to get a new sense of freedom in your consciousness, as if a larger understanding is starting to emerge in your awareness, and you start to win the wager in ways that may be hard to measure, but impossible to ignore. Maybe you sleep more deeply, or you respond instead of react. You listen more fully. You recover more quickly from disappointment. You become more curious and less judgmental. In the language of the brain, you form new neural networks. In the language of the heart, you become more fully alive, and ultimately, you begin to love more freely.

This is not some abstract philosophy. This is a new kind of intelligence - one emerging across humanity – a neural harmony between the brain, the heart and the breath, a living union of higher wisdom with modern science.

NeuroGuide: This is the nature of the way. Not based on belief, but on experience. Not on external certainty, but on sincerity. Not on theoretical doctrine but in the living depth of a certainty born within.

 

 

What Are You Betting On?

So, ask yourself: What are you really betting on? Not just with your words, but with your attention? Your habits? Your patterns? With the way you treat yourself when no one is watching?

Because we are all placing bets, every single day. On habit or healing. On cynicism or wonder. On numbness or presence. On fear or love. And Pascal would remind us: You don’t need certainty to choose wisely. You only need to notice what your current bets are returning. And ask yourself: is it worth it?

            In this light, the Pascalian Wager isn’t about belief. It’s a call to awaken, because the real wager is not about dogma; it’s about possibility, a possibility that is rooted in science and fueled by sincerity.

And when you make the right wager, your life becomes more than an experiment. Your awareness becomes your compass, and like a tuning fork resonating with the Infinite, your very being becomes an offering of heartfelt gratitude and your quest is finally fulfilled.

So, place your bets.

And Pascal’s advice still holds. Wager in the direction where you win, no matter what happens. As for me, I’m taking the play on the high side of the road, because from where I stand, I just don’t see a downside.  But hey - as I often say -  that’s just me.

NeuroGuide: There’s a kind of intelligence that doesn’t speak in concepts – It speaks in resonance. You know it not by what it tells you, but by what it awakens in you. And if something has been awakened – even just a whisper – follow it. It already knows the way.

 

Let’s leave it here for now. I hope you enjoyed the premier of the NeuroGuide. It’s still evolving and there’s much more to come. So, as always, keep your eyes, mind, and heart open. And let’s get together in the next one.