This mindset shift is so dangerous I almost didn’t share it (please don’t use for evil)

What I am about to share in this article, you must promise not to use for evil... because I’m going to give you an alternative way of doing life that, if fallen into the wrong hands, could be used maliciously.

But that’s not my intention.

Rather, I want you to consider how you can leverage this approach to improve your life and to inspire others to do the same. So whatever you do, make sure that you promise to use this information for constructive and well-intentioned purposes.

With that disclaimer out of the way, I'll start off by saying that from the moment you were born, you were probably told to follow the rules, to stay in line, and to never cause disruptions. 

In many respects, that subconscious programming has stuck with you well into adulthood. Even as a seemingly independent, free-thinking adult, much of what you do and how you conduct yourself is dictated by the tenants of conformity that have been instilled in you at a young age.

And this is for good reason because humans are hardwired to cooperate. We have an instinct to try to fit in and not be too disruptive because, in the distant past, 10,000+ years ago, conforming to your group was a matter of survival.

But society has evolved. With the advent of agriculture, modern civilization came into prominence, and social dynamics among humans shifted as a result. Individualism is now a luxury that we could not afford in the past.

So today, we’re far removed from the times where conformity was essential for survival.  In fact, I would argue that society has collectively moved in such a direction that selective non-conformity is now the best survival strategy.

Why do I say this?

Well, let’s just look at the facts.

• 2 out of every 3 adults in the U.S. say that work is a major source of stress in their lives

• The obesity rate among Americans has tripled over the past 50 years.

• More than half of all couples in the U.S. say that financial uncertainty has negatively affected their relationship

This is indicative of systemic failures in our society. So it stands to reason that fully conforming to a modern lifestyle that is causing the population to be sicker and more stressed out is ill-advised.

So, if you want to avoid common pitfalls of the modern western lifestyle, and to live a healthier, more purposeful, and more emotionally grounded life, then you must break some unwritten rules that society holds sacred.

In other words, you must now assume the role of the villain.

The villain is not necessarily bad, but rather the villain challenges the current system of order.  I tapped into CerebriX to provide us with a bit more detail on the role of the villain:

Essentially the villain is one who does not conform to society.

So if the current way of doing things in some domain of your life is not working, then you must become the villain by selectively breaking the cultural norms that are no longer serving your purpose.

But, how does one even assume the role of the villain?

In this article I'm going to show you exactly how to do just that, but before I continue, you should also know that I created a free workflow that you can use to actually help you do this process using either ChatGPT or CerebriX. You'll get much better and more pointed responses with CerebriX since I created it specifically for using in this way, but you can use either.

If you're interested, the workflow is available for download here.

Now, on to the process...

It all starts with creating your origin story (your why)

Your pain point which is the most prominent source of negativity in your life, is the foundation of your origin story.

So there’s something in your life currently that is lowering your frequency.  It could be something with your career, or a relationship, or a financial situation.  But we all have some sort of problem or disturbance in our lives.  In some cases you can be at a point in life where your biggest problem is relatively minor and in other cases you could be experiencing an existential crisis, but there is always one problem in your life that reigns supreme above all others.

I asked CerebriX to give me the top 5 problems faced by your average American and it says that poor health, financial stress, digital distractions, social isolation, and having no purpose in life are most common across today’s society.

Your pain point is likely rooted in one of these problems, but of course it could be completely different depending on your own personal situation.

So to get super clear about your specific pain point, you can walk yourself through your own journey that eventually led you to believing that the current way of doing this is not working for you and that you need to make a change. 

What specific experiences did you have which created a sense of despair for you?

For me, I remember at the beginning of Covid, I was laid off from my job, and I spent the next 10 months applying to hundreds of jobs and doing countless interviews only for people who barely know me to tell me that I didn’t have the skills they were looking for.

I found it to be an extremely dehumanizing experience in so many ways, and so that marked the beginning of my villain origin story when it comes to prioritizing personal sovereignty over climbing the corporate ladder.

Since then, my life has been wholly committed to this cause.

That’s just one of many revelations I’ve had over the years that led me to obsessively pursue the current lifestyle that I’m enjoying.

Your origin story is important because it is the foundation of your vision moving forward. It is what gives you motivation and a sense of purpose.  And most importantly, it is the reason why you’re now challenging the societal norms that are holding you back from living your best possible life.

From your origin story you will define your purpose in life, the principles (or values) that you stand on, and your vision.

If you’d like a bit of help in crafting your own origin story then you can use the free workflow that I provided to help you do this through a series of journal entries before presenting you with 3 suggested villain origin stories.

For this example I used a scenario of someone who realized that they've let themselves get too out of shape because they followed the societal narrative that career is more important than health, and I selected "The Reclaimer" for the villain origin story.

Whether you use A.I. or you do it yourself, once you’ve nailed down your origin story, next you’ll need to…

Create your alter ego (assuming a new identity)

Shifting into a new identity is challenging, so creating an alter-ego gives you a concrete image of the person you need to become.

It gives you a blueprint for unleashing the suppressed characteristics within you that should be emphasized to assume a different identity.

This is important because if these qualities don't naturally present themselves, then you may suffer from imposter syndrome. The alter-ego gives you permission to assume a different identity without feeling like an imposter.

A lot of people use alter egos to awaken the element within them when they are called to rise to the situation.

On the court, Kobe Bryant was the "Black Mamba."

During grueling physical challenges, David Goggins becomes "Goggins."

You'll need to do the same for yourself by creating an alter-ego that embodies the type of person who challenges society in the way that you've deemed important to you.

Come up with a name for this person. Create an identity profile. Define his or her values and principles. And identify their super power.

This will be the basis of the villain role you will step into as a force for positive change in your life and for society.

Using the free workflow that I provided, you can do this with ChatGPT or Cerebrix to output three different suggested alter-egos, along with their respective identity profiles. I chose "Velin Praxis' in this case:

With your alter ego established, next you need to....

Choose your adversary. Decide which societal rules you will reject and then replace them with your own rules.

When you think back to your origin story, the reason why you are now in a place where you feel that drastic change is necessary is because whatever system you once followed isn’t working.  There were certain rules, or societal expectations, that you abided by, only for them to lead you to experiencing a pain point that you now want to overcome.

For example, eating the standard American diet is a cultural norm that has caused many people to struggle with their health and fitness.

Scrolling on social media is a cultural norm that causes many people to spend their time in a state of passive consumption rather than active creation, which can lead to a sense of unfulfillment and dopamine overload among many other things.

Basically, there are certain unwritten societal rules and norms that serve as the underpinnings of your origin story, and you need to figure out what they are. These are your adversaries. They are the rules that you need to break. You need to replace them with your own rules, based on your own values.

One of my biggest adversaries at this moment is the idea that getting promoted or job-hopping my way up to higher positions is the hallmark of success. Subscribing to this type of thinking in the past is what put me in the position of being dehumanized by corporate culture. So instead, I replaced it with my own rules that value health, exploration, and self-mastery over climbing the corporate ladder.

So, my origin story has pointed me toward the cause that I need to fight for, and the status quo that I need to fight against.

This is what you also should do. Go back to your villain origin story. Think about the unwritten rules you’ve followed that have led you to the big problem that you’re currently experiencing in your life, and decide how you will flip the script.

How will you push back against those rules moving forward? What new rules will you create for yourself to challenge the status quo?

I realize this is a bit of a nebulous process, so the free A.I. workflow will do this for you by taking your responses to a few questions, and building a profile of unwritten rules to drop (your adversaries), along with new rules to begin following.

 With that said, the final step for stepping into the villain role is to…

Exploit societal inconsistencies to your favor.  Observe gaps in logic and leverage those insights to gain a strategic advantage.

Society is full of logical inconsistencies, and as the “villain” who challenges the status quo, you will use these inconsistencies to inform your own lifestyle which goes against the culture.

Now that you’re paying attention, you’ll begin to see how many cultural norms, or unwritten rules, are actually quite destructive to most people’s grander life vision.

The normalization of a hyper-consumerist society, to the detriment of many people’s own aspirations for personal sovereignty, is one of those societal inconsistencies.  

For example, despite people having a perfectly functional home, the societal narrative says that your first home is just a starter home, because you need to have one bedroom for each kid plus an extra guest bedroom, an abundance of closet space, and a built-in fridge. So the expected path is to upgrade into larger and fancier homes as both income and family size increases, and thus spending a lot more money in the process.

More money spent means more time working a job that, for many people, brings high levels of stress and poor-all around health, which translates to higher medical bills both now and especially in the future as they finally approach retirement age.

This represents a logical gap in the unwritten rules of society because it leads many people further away from their aspirations to have a more free and autonomous life.

Making this observation, you’re now positioned to exploit this inconsistency by breaking the unwritten societal rules to your advantage. 

This is what I did. I adopted a lifestyle that, in my view, closed the gap and ensured that my daily actions were consistent with my desire to never be dehumanized by corporate culture again, and to have freedom to do what I want with my time.  I did this by selling almost everything I own, including my home, and reducing my material possessions down to whatever can fit into one single moving box.

This reduced my financial burden, thus reducing my need to be plugged into a system that was a major source of pain in my life.

Since your origin story, your alter-ego, your adversaries, and the rules that you no longer conform to are likely different than mine, the way that you exploit the logical gaps will also be different. But they will always entail observing how people follow societal norms that you disagree with, and then doing the opposite of what everyone else is doing.

So that can mean being that person who chooses not to drink alcohol. Or it can mean permanently deleting your social media. Or it could possibly mean leaving the big city, moving to a quiet town somewhere, and living a slow paced life that doesn’t require working a high stress job.

The possibilities are endless, but when you go against the status quo like this, you will in a sense be the villain because you cast a light on the absurdities of society.

But while most may perceive you as a threat, you will be doing yourself a massive favor by curating a much more connected and intentional lifestyle for yourself, and what’s more is that you will also inspire a few others in the process.

Here you can see how I used the free workflow to identify logical gaps and ultimately to develop an exploitation strategy that gives me concrete and actionable steps that I should take to stop doing what everyone else is doing, and start playing by my own rules that I created for myself.

This is finished off with a quick overview that summarizes everything concisely. You can use this if you wish or you can come up with your own method for shifting into the identity of a villain as a force for positive change.

So follow these four steps and you will have successfully entered into the role of the villain.

This is the identity shift that I had for myself. I started to look at myself as a sort of villain who was created by a broken system, and now my purpose is to fight back against the elements of that system which are misaligned with my values, my goals, and my overall vision for a well-lived life.

And I think you should do the same.

Before I end, you should know that if you would like to use AI to help you do all of this and more, then I’ve created a full database of workflows that you can use to navigate some of your most challenging problems in life. The database comes complimentary with CerebriX which is the tool that I created for people like yourself who want to get focused and start living more intentionally.

Lastly, if you’re ready to start taking action towards a newer and better version of yourself, then you can pick up a copy of the “Self-Reinvention Cheat Code” which is a field manual designed to help you get locked in and reboot your life in just 60 days.