“Hi and welcome to Get A Grip! My name is Neal O’Farrell and this is my cunning plan to make the world better by making brains better. And making better brains.
In case you’re not familiar with my background, I was one of the first people in the world to enter the field of cybersecurity, before the word cyber had been coined, more than 40 years ago.
And for all those years and a little bit longer I struggled under the burden of a variety of mental illnesses, untreated, which in turn resulted in more than 30 years of chronic stress trying to deal with, and hide, all that chaos and confusion and shame. And an almost tragic ending.
And that’s when I finally decided it was time to hack my own brain. To use that 40-year hacker mindset to figure out how my brain really worked, why it wasn’t working properly, and what I could do myself, without the intervention of therapists or medications, to fix it. Or at least to make it better.
Get A Grip is the result of that journey and investigation. Not just the science behind better brain and mental health but what happened when I tried all these ideas and strategies – my 15 pillars – on myself.
It was an eye-opening and mind-blowing experience, just how much control we have over our brain and mental health, and often by little more than managing the way that we think. About ourselves and the world around us, and our place and time in it.
And even more exciting, beyond simply health, the real possibility that by taking charge of the way that we think about all of this, we can give ourselves the chance at the best possible life.
I’m grateful you chose to join me on the journey, or at least allow yourself to be curious about it. If you have any questions, comments, ideas, or suggestions, I’d love to hear them. Please reach out to me at neal@thisisgetagrip.com”
