Episodes

Not every relationship lasts forever, and it’s when a relationship ends that all your self-loving and self-caring will really matter. In this episode, Luke and Pascal draw from their own personal heartbreaks to discuss some ways to cope with a breakup: Experiencing a breakup is a normal grieving process, not a sign of being “broken.” Acceptance is the inevitable end point. Both parties can walk away from a breakup with their self-worth and dignity intact. Avoid blaming yourself or your ex, a...

When you keep hearing that you need to love yourself, and nobody gives you instructions in how, it’s easy to feel stuck (and not any more loved). But self-loving people are not a different breed of human being: they’ve just internalized certain lessons earlier in life. In this episode, we’ll do our best to articulate what these lessons might be, so that you can adopt them in adulthood for the decades-long timeline of your future, too: Love is a positive-sum pursuit, not a zero-sum or negative-s...

If you’ve had an experience that overwhelmed your ability to cope, or when you’ve been in an environment where you were regularly unable to cope, you’ve experienced psychological trauma. In this episode, we share seven principles for living well with our wounds and speeding our journeys toward healing and recovery. Trauma is common. Depending on how you define it, around 75% of people experience some form of trauma in their past. Trauma does not mean someone is “broken”, rather they have exper...

In this episode, we advocate for capital-letter Truth, Morality and Beauty in our purportedly post-modern world, and we argue that these ideals are not quaintly outdated, but necessary for society to function and for you (as an adult) to be at your happiest: Pursuing truth, morality and beauty are worthwhile goals even in modern times, and not just “Victorian” concepts. Maintaining lies, especially lies to oneself, can be psychologically and physically damaging over time due to the stress of k...

Since the dawn of time, philosophers have grappled with how to cope with our knowledge of death, both when it happens to loved ones and when it happens to us. In this episode, we do our best to answer this age-old question, referencing both traditional wisdom and more recent thought. Bonus content: Luke demonstrates that it’s okay to cry in public, such as when you’re talking about your cat’s final days. How to Be an Adult has shifted from a bi-weekly to a monthly release schedule. Repressing ...

If you do adult life well enough, eventually you’ll be considered such an exemplar of adult behaviour that your boss will ask you to lead other people, or you will naturally end up being a leader by virtue of having more skill or knowledge. But promotions don’t usually come with an instruction manual, and too often, we see senior-level leaders thinking and behaving in intermediate-level ways. In today’s episode, we’ll discuss how: Leadership involves having authority or knowledge that others la...

So many of us grew up hearing from adults that work is necessarily hard, or that money is necessarily hard to come by. Yet younger generations have exceeded their parents in many ways, and work does not need to be an exception. In this episode, we share some principles for how to find meaning and happiness in a world where most of us have to work for a living: A scarcity mindset is one where there never seems to be enough money. An abundance mindset that views wealth as plentiful allows you to ...

For the first 18 years of your life, your parents were responsible for ensuring that you had adequate food, clothes and shelter. Once you reach adulthood, it’s you, not your parents, who hold this responsibility. But unless we’ve been show how to perform acts of self-care, and why we need to, they often elude us. In this episode, we endeavour to remedy this gap: We have a duty to care for our physical bodies, as the stewards of our own lives. We should treat ourselves with at least the same lev...

By the time we reach adulthood, we’re expected to be responsible for our own thoughts and emotions: we can’t just blame other people every time we’re unhappy or upset. But if you didn’t learn how to be happy and relaxed in childhood, how can you expect to be happy and relaxed in adult life, when circumstances could be more adverse? In this episode, we do our best to give you pointers: Self-loving thoughts that are caring, respectful and esteem-building will always make one feel better, while se...

Throughout this podcast, we’ve made the case (and we will continue to make the case) that living an excellent life requires us to abide by a set of principles that are universal enough that we could say they are in accordance with human nature. But why? And what happens if we don’t? In this episode, we speak about how: Having clear principles to live by helps guide decision making and reduces regret. Principle remain relevant even in times of strong emotion. To pick truth as an example, white ...

You can find many people and traditions that will tell you to honour and respect your parents. In this episode, we make a case for why, in adulthood, you must exceed your parents too. Unless we do this, society will become more closed and intolerant, rather than open and accepting of changes that occur in the world—which is what actually happens as the decades and centuries progress. We speak about how: Younger generations exceeding their parents is necessary for societal progress as it allows ...

In most households and in schools, the rules for children are different from the rules for adults. But the time you reach adulthood, these childhood rules become obsolete and have to be abandoned. In this episode, we identify several of these childhood lessons that you must abandon in adult life, like that your own opinions aren’t good enough, or that you can get things perfect in adult endeavours. We speak about how: By age 18, people should be able to trust and value their own thoughts, opini...

In this episode, Luke and Pascal speak about how to relate to other human beings as an adult, and more generally, your place in the world. We start by speaking about the importance of approaching other people with a metaphorical cup that’s full or running over. We also discuss the importance of truth, boundary-setting as an expression of morality, human nature as fundamentally pro-social, relationships as a positive-sum pursuit and social media being anything but that: Love, respect, esteem are...

In this episode, we’re going to delve into a philosophy of adulthood that makes it empowering and liberating, rather than onerous and burdensome. We challenge a few popular notions, like that self-love is self-centred, or that truth is irrelevant in a world where narrative is everything. This is the guide to life that your parents should have given you by the age of 18, but didn’t. Your hosts are Luke Chao, founder of The Morpheus Clinic for Hypnosis, and Pascal Langdale, the newest addition to...

Our team has launched a new podcast, called How to Be an Adult. It’s the trail guide to life that you should have received when you turned 18, but didn’t. Whether you’re 18 or 80, we intend to help you to feel like an equal to your peers, and to live excellently. In the first episode, your co-hosts Luke Chao and Pascal Langdale discuss what it even means to be an adult. We discuss definitions, rites of passage, and how adulthood should feel empowering and liberating, rather than onerous and bur...