In all relationships and generally in life, it’s considered good manners to “know what you want.” But what if you don’t? Worse, what if you actually do have preferences, but you’re too afraid to speak them aloud? In this solo episode of How to Be an Adult, Luke Chao explores these questions and tries to arrive at some principles for how to be more decisive:

• Not knowing what you want isn’t always a problem. Sometimes you’re genuinely indifferent between several good options. Other times, you simply haven’t accumulated enough knowledge or experience to develop a preference. Neither situation needs to be pathologized.
• You discover your preferences through experience. You can’t necessarily know what career, relationship, or lifestyle suits you until you’ve explored different possibilities. Sometimes the solution to uncertainty is to gain experience rather than engage in more introspection.
• Sometimes “I don’t know what I want” is a lie we tell ourselves and others. You might know exactly what you want but feel uncomfortable admitting it because your preferences conflict with other people’s expectations.
• People-pleasing can disguise your true desires. Fear of disappointing parents, disagreeing with friends, or violating cultural expectations can make it easier to claim uncertainty than to express a genuine preference.
• Short-term and long-term desires can conflict. Something that feels good today might undermine your future ambitions. Make decisions with the understanding that there will be a tomorrow, and that your future self deserves consideration.
• Beware of believing the grass is always greener elsewhere. When you compare your current circumstances with imagined alternatives, remember that your existing choices were probably made for good reasons. Don’t dismiss the judgment of your younger self or overlook the benefits of what you’ve already built.
• Indecision is itself a decision—and often the worst one. Refusing to choose doesn’t preserve every opportunity indefinitely. Opportunities can disappear, relationships can move on, and progress can stall. Making a decision allows your life to move forward.
• Making a decision necessarily means eliminating alternatives. The word “decision” implies cutting off possibilities. Rather than fearing the options you lose, recognize that committing to one direction is what makes meaningful progress possible.
• Stop searching for the perfect choice. No career, relationship, home, or life path will be flawless. There are many options that are good enough to produce happiness, prosperity, and fulfillment. Perfectionism can prevent you from appreciating perfectly acceptable opportunities.
• Most decisions aren’t permanent. You can change careers, move cities, end relationships, or pursue different interests as your circumstances evolve. Making a decision today doesn’t mean surrendering your ability to make different decisions tomorrow.
• However, there is enormous value in commitment. Staying with a career, relationship, or pursuit allows benefits to accumulate over time. Experience, expertise, trust, and meaningful achievements often emerge only after years of sustained effort. The freedom to change course also includes the freedom to stay.
• There isn’t one correct path to a fulfilling life. Many different careers, partners, homes, and circumstances can lead to happiness. Your job isn’t to discover the one predetermined route to success but to choose a worthwhile direction and continue developing it.

Table of Contents

0:00 – Introduction
3:38 – What If You Lack Knowledge or Experience?
5:41 – People Take “What You Want” Seriously
9:51 – When “What You Want” Conflcits with “What You’re Capable of”
12:04 – “What You Want” in the Short- and Long-Term
15:52 – The Grass Isn’t Greener On The Other Side
17:40 – Any Decision Is Better Than Indecision
19:30 – There’s No Perfect Decision
20:28 – Few Decisions Are Forever
23:58 – The Merits Of Commitment
26:11 – No Single True Path
33:58 – Outro

Listen above, on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify, or watch the full video on YouTube. Remember to like, subscribe and share!

The post How to Know What You Want (Ep. 40) appeared first on The Morpheus Clinic for Hypnosis.

Because this podcast is called How to Be an Adult, and we take our promises seriously, you will never see us release an episode titled “How to Never Disappoint Others” or “How to Avoid Criticism.” In this episode, Luke Chao talks about how to disappoint others in a principled manner:

• Disappointment results from an internal mental mismatch between a person’s expectations and reality; it does not exist in the external world.
• Living an authentic life and pursuing creative or entrepreneurial goals inevitably leads to disappointing some people due to the diversity of opinions and values.
• It is impossible to be universally liked, and trying to avoid disappointing others often results in personal resentment, bitterness, or the betrayal of one’s own principles.
• Individuals should be the primary authority over their own lives, as they are best positioned to know their own constraints, needs, and capabilities.
• Saying ‘no’ to others does not require extensive justification or a watertight argument; a simple, direct refusal is sufficient to maintain personal boundaries.
• When facing disappointment, criticism or even anger from others, you should consider whether you have failed a moral principle; if you are acting in alignment with your personal values, it is not an error.
• The only person you truly cannot afford to disappoint is yourself, since you are the only individual you are guaranteed to live with for your entire life.

Table of Contents

0:00 – Introduction
4:27 – Adulthood Requires Disappointing Others Sometimes
13:06 – No Is a Complete Answer
21:03 – Stay True to Yourself
23:38 – Disappointment Does Not Harm Others
29:33 – Outro

Listen above, on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify, or watch the full video on YouTube. Remember to like, subscribe and share!

The post How to Disappoint Others (Ep. 39) appeared first on The Morpheus Clinic for Hypnosis.

“Just be yourself!” We’ve all heard this platitude, but without specific instruction in what it means, the advice is rather useless. In this solo episode, Luke breaks down how to be yourself, and six enemies of your authentic self:

• Being authentic as an adult means embracing your individuality rather than compromising your values, thoughts, or feelings to meet external standards or please others.
• Individuals like Rosa Parks, Einstein, and Gandhi are viewed as iconic because they trusted their own moral compass and inner judgment rather than conforming to the expectations of their time.
• The primary enemies of an authentic self include toxic shame, performative niceness (people-pleasing), fear of rejection, the pressure to conform, and getting caught in competitive status games.
• We consider people-pleasing to be passive-aggressive because it involves suppressing one’s true thoughts and feelings, which eventually erupts negatively.
• Status games are zero-sum competitions that fosters misery through constant social comparison; in contrast, living authentically is a positive-sum game where each person can thrive on their own unique path.
• Adults are encouraged to use their own intelligence to solve life problems by asking themselves well-formed, substantive questions instead of speculating on what others might think.
• Self-actualization, according to Abraham Maslow, is a lifelong journey that becomes possible once basic needs are met and one chooses to act with integrity and self-esteem.
• You are not an inferior version of anyone else, including parents or peers, nor their illusions fio you, and you are inherently lovable just as you are.

Table of Contents:

0:00 – Intro
1:18 – Parable of the tiger who was raised by wolves
2:38 – You are incomparable with other individuals
6:30 – Trust your own adult judgement
9:13 – Prompt engineer your brain
11:56 – Questions to ask yourself
13:51 – Enemies of your authentic self: Introduction
14:04 – Enemy #1: Toxic shame
17:59 – Enemy #2: Performative niceness
22:47 – Enemy #3: Fear of rejection or criticism
25:15 – Enemy #4: Conformity
26:06 – Enemy #5: Neediness
28:28 – Enemy #6: Taking the status game too seriously
33:11 – Abraham Maslow and self-actualization
42:55 – Outro

Listen above, on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify, or watch the full video on YouTube. Remember to like, subscribe and share!

The post How to “Be Yourself” (Ep. 38) appeared first on The Morpheus Clinic for Hypnosis.

If you’ve ever heard the clichéd phrase, “take care of yourself,” you might have been flummoxed about how, especially if your needs were unmet in early life. Yet, as Luke will argue in this episode, taking care of yourself is a defining feature of adulthood: at last, you have a capable guardian. We shall use Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a framework:

• As adults, we serve as our own primary caregivers, responsible for meeting our own needs rather than relying on parents, partners, or employers.
• Taking care of oneself is a positive-sum game, analogous to the airline safety instruction to ‘put on your own mask first’ before assisting others.
• Neglecting self-care erases oneself from one’s own life, a behavior that must be unlearned to improve well-being and capability to support others.
• We use the hierarchy of needs framework by Abraham Maslow to categorize requirements from basic physiological needs to higher-level self-actualization.
• Setting clear boundaries through verbal communication is a modern method for ensuring personal safety and security.
• You are encouraged to examine inherited behaviors from your parents and intentionally choose to overcome generational neglect by prioritizing your own well-being and values.

Table of Contents:

0:00 – Introduction
2:01 – You Are Your Primary Caregiver
11:04 – Count Yourself In
13:43 – Self Care Is a Positive-Sum Game
18:10 – Introduction to Maslow’s Hierarchy
18:38 – Physiological Needs
19:09 – Safety and Security Needs
21:09 – Love and Belonging
21:57 – Respect and Esteem
22:25 – Self-actualization
27:09 – The Impact of Your Upbringing
30:41 – Outro

Listen above, on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify, or watch the full video on YouTube. Remember to like, subscribe and share!

The post How to “Take Care of Yourself” (Ep. 37) appeared first on The Morpheus Clinic for Hypnosis.

Good sex is not an accident: it happens deliberately. In this dual-hosted episode of How to Be an Adult with Luke and Kate, we strip away the cultural noise to look at the reality of physical intimacy. We break down what it actually means to be present with another person and how to engage in the unapologetic, shameless exchange of mutual pleasure:

• We define good sex as a mutually pleasurable, safe, and relaxing activity that aligns physical, emotional and mental wellness, characterized by mutual validation rather than performance.
• We emphasize that sex should be fun, not stressful, and that adults have the moral authority to move past shame or guilt that is rooted in one’s upbringing or societal expectations.
• Communication is the cornerstone of healthy sexual experiences; partners should explicitly discuss their desires, boundaries, and preferences to ensure mutual enjoyment.
• The ultimate authority in the bedroom belongs solely to the partners involved, overriding outside influences like religious figures, parents, or generalized media advice.
• We advise approaching sex as a five-sense experience, similar to a gourmet meal, to stay present in the moment and avoid disembodied, anxious thoughts.
• Consent must be ongoing and should be enthusiastic; the hosts advocate for a risk-aware approach to kink, noting that activities like bondage or impact play require higher levels of communication and safety planning.
• The podcast warns against relying on pornographic depictions, which are often inauthentic and performative, instead encouraging individuals to cultivate self-love and self-respect to engage in genuine, reciprocal intimacy.
• The hosts encourage listeners to treat themselves with unconditional acceptance, similar to how infants are cared for, to break generational cycles of shame and fully embrace their natural, primal desires.

Table of Contents:

00:00 – Beginning
02:37 – What is Good Sex?
04:43 – Approaching Sex as an Adult
07:04 – Your Self-Authority
14:38 – Love Yourself First
22:04 – A Place to Be in Your Nature
23:43 – A Five Sense Experience
28:38 – How to Make Consent Sexy
34:35 – “Performance”
39:30 – Setting Boundaries
40:57 – Kink
45:23 – Outro

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The post How to Have Better Sex (Ep. 36) appeared first on The Morpheus Clinic for Hypnosis.

In the second of this two-part episode about how to dress like an adult, pour homme, Luke shares what he has learned about outerwear, accessories and how to put together an outfit:

• For cold weather, invest in a quality wool overcoat such as a Chesterfield, polo coat, or balmacaan to wear over suits, and consider a trench coat or barbour coat for shoulder seasons.
• While often criticized, a high-quality fedora made of fur felt is considered appropriate headgear for suits, provided it is not paired with casual clothing.
• Practicality takes precedence in extreme winter, but for general accessories, leather gloves, scarves, and pocket squares add personality and color to a wardrobe.
• Transition from backpacks to leather satchels or briefcases to elevate professional appearance.
• When selecting a watch, opt for a ‘go anywhere, do anything’ (GADA) style, such as a metal-braceleted sports watch, which is versatile enough for both formal and casual settings.
• To coordinate outfits, stick to a neutral color palette, avoid mixing more than two patterns unless they differ in size, and match leather items like belts and watch straps when possible.
• It isn’t cheating to use AI chatbots as a tool to help curate and coordinate clothing items while developing a personal sense of style.
• Dressing intentionally and well-fitted is encouraged as a way to increase self-esteem, garner respect from others, and improve attractiveness.

Table of Contents:

0:00 – Introduction
0:43 – How to Look Good in the Cold
2:26 – The Importance of Hats
8:14 – Finishing Touches
15:20 – Putting Together an Outfit
16:43 – Colour Continued
19:40 – Formality and Propriety
26:35 – The Mindset of Dressing Well

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The post How to Dress Like an Adult: Pour Homme (Ep. 35: Part 2 of 2) appeared first on The Morpheus Clinic for Hypnosis.

If you’ve been following our social media, you might have noticed that Luke has been dressing better in recent months. In the first of this two-part episode about how to dress like an adult, pour homme, he shares what he has learned about how to dress like a white-collar office professional in 2026 and beyond:

• Luke discusses how to curate a professional, intentional, and classic male work wardrobe, emphasizing that clothing is a form of self-expression.
• We recommend prioritizing quality over quantity, focusing on natural fabrics like wool, linen, and cotton while avoiding polyester and visible branding.
• For a versatile starter wardrobe, invest in a navy and a charcoal suit, both single-breasted with notched lapels and flap pockets, which are appropriate for interviews, weddings, and funerals.
• Proper fit is essential. We recommend knowing your specific body measurements and utilize a tailor to ensure garments fit well, particularly in the shoulders, and to hem trousers correctly.
• We suggest a neutral color palette for easier mixing and matching, including white, charcoal, gray, navy, olive, forest green, beige, burgundy, and dark brown.
• When dressing for the office, avoid sneakers and athletic wear; opt for leather shoes or boots, with brown or burgundy being more versatile than black for daily wear.
• A button-down collar shirt is recommended when wearing a jacket without a tie to keep the collar in place, while point and spread collars are better suited for outfits with ties.
• We advise against wearing suit trousers separately from the jacket to prevent uneven wear and suggests investing in ‘odd’ trousers like wool flannel or corduroy for casual but professional looks.

Our next episode will cover outerwear, accessories and how to put an outfit together. In a future episode, Kate Voss will host the feminine-coded version of this topic.

Table of Contents:

0:00 – Introduction
3:01 – Fashion is self-expression
12:44 – Elements of style
13:45 – Fit
15:17 – Material/texture
17:58 – Colour
18:52 – Suits and sport coats
26:52 – Shirts
32:21 – Pants
41:30 – Knitwear
43:41 – Footwear

Listen above, on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify, or watch the full video on YouTube. Remember to like, subscribe and share!

The post How to Dress Like an Adult: Pour Homme (Ep. 34: Part 1 of 2) appeared first on The Morpheus Clinic for Hypnosis.

When current events are so constantly upsetting, how do we remain informed without descending into despondency? In this timely episode, Luke shares how he consumes the news while remaining hopeful:

• It’s possible to be well-informed without succumbing to stress or doomscrolling, which means you don’t have to choose between being informed or being comfortable.
• To avoid filter bubbles created by social media algorithms, use RSS readers to curate news from multiple credible sources across the political spectrum and different countries.
• Be aware that news media is often curated, focusing on negative events (“if it bleeds, it leads”) due to commercial interests. Media consolidation can further influence narratives.
• Remember the purpose of consuming news is to be an informed citizen and extract actionable information, not for passive entertainment or to induce suffering in yourself.
• Focus on your personal sphere of influence where you can make a tangible difference, rather than solely dwelling on global events for which you have no direct culpability.
• Personal well-being and happiness do not detract from global efforts; instead, by being at peace, you add to the world’s overall peace and happiness.
• Maintain moral clarity by distinguishing between others’ wrongdoings and your own actions. Then, you can sleep well at night and help the world in the future.
• Defining specific times and places for news consumption, develop interests outside of news and smartphones, and engage with your local community.

Table of Contents:

0:00 – Intro
5:56 – #1: Consume the news selectively
11:40 – #2: Be aware of ideological bias in the media
18:42 – #3: Keep in mind how few events are reported
22:25 – #4: Have a clear purpose for news consumption
26:56 – #5: Have interests other than the news
30:39 – #6: Remember your personal sphere of influence
32:31 – #7: Your personal suffering does not reduce global suffering
36:33 – Outro

Listen above, on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify, or watch the full video on YouTube. Remember to like, subscribe and share!

The post How to Cope with Tragic Events in the News (Ep. 33) appeared first on The Morpheus Clinic for Hypnosis.