I’m driven by questions I constantly ask of myself and the people I built Goldmind for: What if you are capable of more? What opportunities are you missing at these major forks in your life? I want Goldmind Health to be simultaneously aspirational--“be all you can be”--with an undercurrent of urgency and challenge--we’re gestating a generation of young adults with governors placed on their minds. I am fearful for American exceptionalism if we settle for this SFM morphine that clouds our minds and makes us incapable of thinking deeply for ourselves.
I want to be crystal clear: a daily supplement sachet will not solve this existential problem. But Goldmind is a symbol--a tangible, daily commitment to wrest control back over your mind. You are literally swallowing these pills--putting them into your body to be incorporated into your neurons--to give yourself the best building blocks for an independent, autonomous mind.
I want people to be aware of--and afraid of--what we’re slowly, unconsciously becoming: pure digital automatons. We’re waiting to be fed a continuous stream of memes and becoming disconnected from the messy, beautiful complexity of our own minds. We cannot even know what we want, or who we are, if we never take a moment to let our minds wander. To visualize the future we want and the person we will be. I want us to see, clear as day, that letting engagement-bait online shape our desires and mold our minds into a homogeneous, superficial identitarian culture is something we need to reject. Goldmind is one way of expressing this realization: yes, I am losing something--the full depth of my thought--and I will fight to regain it.
No, you don’t need to buy supplements to start this process. “Defragging Your Mind” is a straightforward guidebook on how to do this. The guidebook is free, and essentially everything inside it you act on is free. Skip the supplements, do the other sections with fidelity, and I guarantee you’ll get 90–95% of the total benefits I can offer (all completely free). I want urgency--fear tempered by optimism, ambition, and resolve/commitment. I want people to look around at their social milieu and feel “wasted potential” in their core. To see people voluntarily--and unwittingly--limiting themselves by changing how their minds function for entertainment that isn’t even that entertaining. I want people to think and focus, naturally. To return to what got humans to the place where the internet and social media could be invented. A place where minds wander and play with ideas and create original opinions (based on direct experiences and what they read/see/watch online). I want people to be proud of how they deploy their time and attention.
Exercise was not a thing 100 years ago. Truly, think about this. Yes, people walked and played and got physical activity, but this was all in the course of our natural daily activities. We didn’t plan a discrete episode of “jogging” 100 years ago. The need for--and benefit of--structured exercise was an outgrowth of modernity: increasingly sedentary white-collar work and massively increased leisure time. With overabundant calories and reduced physical demands at work, we realized we needed to invest time and effort into our bodies to maintain health and full physical abilities.
It’s time we realize we need mental exercise as well--and just as urgently as we needed to diet and jog 40 years ago. We now have abundant, ubiquitous “information” available 24/7, presented in an all-you-can-eat buffet of social media “feeds.” But we do not have the same overt indicators for cognitive health as we do for physical health. If you become morbidly obese or have an HbA1c of 10%, those are tangible markers of physical ill health. What are the corresponding cognitive signs of ill health? I would posit hours of screen time; hours on social media; number of books read per month; time spent writing; time spent not consuming media. Certainly, being unable to focus for more than 5 minutes or being unable to complete basic work functions is something I encounter all the time in my day job as a psychiatrist. But this is not a pathological neurodevelopmental disorder present continuously since (generously) age 12. This is NOT ADHD! I want people to know this is a fragmented-focus syndrome caused by constantly jamming disconnected tidbits into your cortex without context. I want people to see this as an acquired disorder they’ve voluntarily (if unknowingly) assented to--but can voluntarily reverse with better cognitive-hygiene practices. This can be done simply (not easily) by following “Defragging Your Mind.” Every day you wait to reclaim your mentation, focus, and mind, you further strengthen the neural circuitry of distraction and kneecap your own cognitive abilities. I want people to feel eager, enthusiastic, energized by the message of Goldmind--that this is achievable. That you can undo the fragmentation. You can buy commodity supplements in the doses Goldmind supplies--great--as long as they’re high quality, you’ll benefit. But that is not what this brand is for.
I want people to understand they need to start today and take the process seriously. It is hard but it is worth it. Do not just resign yourself to frittering away your attention. Our time--our attention--is our most valuable asset--this is a way to reclaim it. Please start now!