Watch & read

One argument, told from different sides.

Everything I make in English is one argument: life has three mountains, in one order, and you can't skip the middle one. The Sunday letter is where I work it out, one week at a time. The videos take it one side at a time, and each one assumes the last. Read the map first; it tells you which of these is for you.

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The Sunday Letter

A letter every Sunday about what I'm seeing.

For years I've written a letter every Sunday morning in Hungarian, about the people I talked to that week, what they're facing, and what it tells me about the terrain. This is the English one. It's short. It's about people, work, relationships, crisis and the next step. There's nothing at the end of it but the next letter.

The Skipped Mountain

You can't reach a life that means something without going through the mountain you've been told to avoid. And once you've crossed it, you can't stay there either. About ten minutes; it's the whole argument.

When Therapy Stops Working

Self-knowledge is the most useful tool I've ever handled. It is also the second valley's favorite trap — and the way out of that valley is not more insight.

How to Know You've Actually Crossed

A transition is never proven by what you believe about yourself. It's proven by what happened afterwards. The evidence test I use, and a two-column ledger you can keep.

All letters on Substack

The videos

The videos, in order.

I'm making these now, in this order, ten to twenty minutes each. Subscribe for the next one.

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Why the best advice keeps failing you.

The three mountains, named by what you long for; the two valleys; why the same advice saves one person and wastes another's year.

You found yourself. Why isn't it enough?

The claim: you cannot skip it, and you cannot live there. What David Brooks's two mountains are missing.

Success, collapse, and the map I drew from a thousand lives.

Where the map came from: not a theory, but a description of terrain I nearly died on.

Video soon

Are you climbing or falling?

Three questions to locate yourself, and what each answer means for the next step.

Video soon

The false calling.

Why a sincere return to duty and tradition can become a refuge from the descent into the self — a false summit that looks like Meaning from below.

Video soon

When therapy stops working.

The stalled second mountain, and why the way out isn't more insight.

Video soon

How to know you've actually crossed.

The transition test: what doesn't prove it, what does.

Video soon

The oldest map of a human life.

A story you already know that contains the whole map, including the brother who never left.

Video soon

In a hurry? Start from where you're standing.

Successful, and the life you built no longer feels alive. Read the first valley, then The Skipped Mountain.

You understand yourself, and nothing moves. Read the second valley, then When Therapy Stops Working.

You're committed, and it's started to be about you. Read the third valley, then How to Know You've Actually Crossed.

Someone told you to find yourself. Someone else told you to take responsibility. Read the shortcut, then The Skipped Mountain.

Three things I keep coming back to.

Relationships.

How what we need from ourselves and from each other changes as we change.

Responsibility.

When freedom, commitment and contribution become timely, and when they don't.

The next step.

What a crisis is asking for, without turning it into a quick diagnosis.

Then find out where you are.

Three questions Get help