Meet the Author of How Life Really Works

Meet Michael Haupt, author of How Life Really Works

Hi there,

While I would much rather talk about you than about myself, I do realise you’re probably dubious about some of the things I say.  After all, there’s a ton of trash online – I know, since I see it every day. Hopefully you’ll get to know and understand me a little better after reading this introduction.

The first thing you should know is that I’m a little weird. Even the few friends I have tell me I’m totally wacko; I’ve lost the plot; I’m not rowing with two oars. I mention this because the stuff you’ll learn in How Life Really Works will give you insights into how this world works that is seriously different to mainstream mentality. Depending on what type of people you associate and spend time with, this material has the potential to isolate you from your friends trapped in their humdrum lives. You see, most people do things without ever questioning why. They do things purely because that’s what their parents did, and that’s what their friends do. Conventional wisdom, which is hardly ever effective. And so the cycle of insanity is repeated over and over again, even though it produces results that suck. How Life Really Works, on the other hand, is dangerously controversial stuff, and you’d better be careful who you discuss the concepts with… But more about that later.

So, if I’m such a nut case, why on earth should you spend your time here?

Excellent question, and one which deserves a thorough answer, so here’s a little more about me.

I used to think everyone knew something that I didn’t. I used to feel that I had to fake that I knew what was going on.  I always felt awkward and different, which led to an all-encompassing desire to question everything that most people seemed to take for granted.  I had a burning desire to find out what this life is really about.  It confused me that while everyone around me seemed to have it all together: money, success and fame -  they never seemed to have true happiness, true fulfilment. I wondered why that was.

“Can we afford to be so arrogant as to pretend we know something we don’t know, the knowing of which could transform our lives?” — Werner Erhard, founder of “The Forum”.

Now I know we all ( for the most part) are searching for answers.  Searching for anything that will make sense of life in this senseless world. Material success is fleeting; answers to deeper questions seem elusive.

“Everything has been figured out, except how to live.” — Jean-Paul Sartre

For as long as I can remember I’ve always had an interest in life – how we got here, what makes the world tick, what’s the purpose of life. You know, the usual stuff that might keep you awake at night. I remember always questioning those in authority: my parents, teachers, church leaders, bosses. I’d always be asking “Why”, and the answers I received never seemed to gel with me. The most irritating response I’d receive when people didn’t know the answer to my questions was that I should simply accept things (have faith), or ‘just because’. I hated that!

“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it.” — Jack Handey

The never-ending path to consciousness

I didn’t realise it at the time but my desire to “know” put me on a path towards expanding consciousness. Perhaps a better way of saying this is that my thinking was beginning to awaken intuition. As if my questions were slowly answering themselves, opening my eyes to the insights that are latent in us all, but kept hidden behind the veil of Western busy-ness. As I walked this path, the questions I dwelled upon were somehow answered. I was never sure just when the answers had arrived. I only sensed, sometime after “illumination”, that an intuitive knowing had been imparted when I wasn’t paying close attention.

Religion

Although raised as a church-going Baptist, I found many of their teachings, rules and rituals contradictory, and more importantly, inconsistent with the answers I had intuitively stumbled upon. I’ve always believed, for example, that each of us is really doing our best given our own understandings, therefore if judgement were to be passed on anyone’s life, and I don’t believe it is, “sin” would only ever be regarded as an honest “mistake” due to deep misunderstandings. Not a demerit system that leads to eternal damnation. Wouldn’t a loving God, I reasoned, have more compassion than to seek revenge on his comparatively feeble children who are temporarily blinded by the illusions they’ve created? Even human parents are far more understanding of their own flesh and blood than the “Father” as portrayed in most religions. Sin, and its past and present connotations, must have been a term derived by man, I concluded, not an understanding, all-knowing God.

I’ve always needed explanations that made sense, and just as importantly, I believed they were attainable. I came to deduce, and still believe, that Jesus was merely a messenger, here to tell us, as others have, that we are all “of God”, that the things he did, we all can do, and that there are no sins, no evil, no hell, other than what exists in our own minds. His purpose was to be a living example of these teachings, to show a better way to his fellow travellers at a dark time in history when limiting beliefs were so ingrained into the population they no longer sought, nor could they conceive of, greater thinking.

The Joy of Reading

I’ve always been an avid reader. Since the age of 12 I’ve probably averaged 1-2 new books a week.  So it’s hardly surprising that over my life, several books, or authors, have helped define my own thoughts, and therefore my life, in the most profound ways.

Dr Ian Weinberg, a pioneer in the relatively new science of applied psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), which in effect is the enhancement of immunity through optimizing mind strategies.

During my early years I hadn’t been able to interlink the various books I’d been reading; they were all standalone lessons.  But in my mid-thirty’s I stumbled across the Triangular Theory of Consciousness, a phrase coined by a little-known South African neurosurgeon, Dr Ian Weinberg in ‘Quantum-determinism – an Integrative Model of Holistic Consciousness’. (Published in Quantum Leap, Sygma Books, 1998.)  It was a complex piece of work, but essentially Dr Weinberg was trying to explain that all themes of knowledge can be summarised. Imagine the tip of a pyramid as being the core teachings of any particular discipline. The discerning thinker genuinely seeking wisdom accepts all the proven peaks (even if contrary to personal beliefs) and amalgamates all these nuggets of understanding into a life paradigm. This approach leverages the results and outcomes of all prior research, learning and understanding. It’s a fairly difficult skill to master, since Westerners most often require proof before embracing or believing anything.

This mode of thinking requires discernment to filter out warped ideas and courage to accept new concepts without proof. In embracing all these peaks, a new paradigm is created, which then becomes simply another peak to be added to an ever-expanding life paradigm.

Aldous Huxley explained it this way:

“Every ceiling, when reached, becomes a floor, upon which one walks as a matter of course and prescriptive right.” — Aldous Huxley

As you break through the ceiling of previously-held limiting beliefs, you’re able to walk courageously on the foundation of new understandings, ready to smash through the next ceiling.

Socrates had this to say:

“Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.” — Socrates

The outcome of this method of disciplined thinking has paid handsome dividends, and it has definitely changed my life. Following this method of thinking allowed me to merge seemingly disparate concepts to create new understandings.

With my own inner search no longer lost in space I began to use and apply the understandings that were solidified by the Triangular Theory of Consciousness without any looking back. With the answers to my fundamental questions revealed, the focus of my life has become the application, or the living, of the truths I’ve stumbled upon – a mighty tall, but rewarding, order. Today it’s through the pursuit of my goals and dreams that I learn lessons and even greater secrets about life and myself.

Professional Career

As far as career and ’success’ go, by most standards I’ve been extremely lucky. After completing a highly rewarding and thoroughly enjoyable 2-year stint in the military, I seemingly accidently stumbled into the mobile phone world, which led to my implementing telephony billing systems around the world. This career helped me fulfil (with uncanny accuracy), a goal that I had written down less than 2 years earlier: to see the world at someone else’s expense.

Apart from my travels to more than 325 cities in 41 countries, I have lived in Australia, Malaysia (including running a jungle bar on one of their islands!), South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom and United States. The time spent in the East was particularly helpful in realising that the way we do things in the West isn’t always conducive to a happy life. The English-speaking world is often too wrapped up in itself to notice other cultures. Living in the East provides a foreigner a better understanding of the mysteries of the East.

The lessons learned and my understandings have helped as much in other areas of my life from relationships to material possessions to what it means to ‘be successful’, and they continue to grow with their own momentum. I’m still a student, and in this journey I’ve begun to realise that as much as I enjoy thinking and living my thoughts, I enjoy sharing them too…

As Solomon Ibn Gabriol so wisely said:

“The first step in the acquisition of wisdom is silence, the second listening, the third memory, the fourth practice, the fifth teaching others.” — Solomon Ibn Gabriol

But most of all, I enjoy learning from others… which I expect, is at least part of the reason, that our paths have crossed here and now, you and I.

Thanks for coming by, keep in touch, and be blessed…

PS. You might also be interested in My Purpose.

If you've enjoyed what you've read so far, you'll certainly enjoy my big-picture thinking in the booklet The 2012 Manifesto. You can read more about it here or just click on the big-ass Download button below and I'll take you straight to the download page.