The 5 Stages of Understanding LifeMathMoney

I’ve been writing LMM for almost 8 years now (time flies!) and in this time, I’ve seen many people who used to “hate” me turn into readers and customers.

This might sound surprising to most readers who are naturally ambitious (it is DNA deep) and actively look for the type of information I publish on LMM, but you have to remember that this corner of the internet is the “crazy weirdo” side.

If you are a regular LMM reader (or in the business and self-improvement sphere in general), you are likely a high IQ individual who actively seeks truth even when it hurts. You constantly try to get better and you feel guilty if you waste time.

Most of humanity is not like this. Most of the population is very comfortable sitting and watching 4 hours of video entertainment each day (YouTube, TV, Netflix, Reels, whatever) and simply could not care about starting a business.

They are happy with their wage slave job and happily watch all the episodes of whatever show is trending and brag to their friends about “binging all night” on them.

Depending on how long you’ve been in online business and self-improvement, this may seem unfathomable to you (ambitious people self-isolate from the masses and like to hang out with each other and it becomes a bubble)… but rest assured most people don’t care about working out, don’t manage their diet, don’t care about building a business, aren’t obsessively studying new tech like AI and crypto to get an edge, etc.

If you enjoy reading this website, you are the “crazy” guy from the perspective of average people.

Most of them don’t even have the attention span to read a wall of text anymore because they’ve been addicted to getting a dopamine hit every 30 seconds from short form videos.

The rest lack the truth preference necessary to read this website and just default to “LMM is problematic and racist/sexist/misogynist/label-of-choice”. However, a few make it through the tunnel and find the light.

In my experience, there is a 5 stage arc that plays out.

1) Denial

The first reaction of the average person when he comes across LMM is denial. Instead of accepting reality, he simply denies it.

“This guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about”

“He is an anon course scammer“

“He is an incel”

This is the equivalent of a child covering his ears and saying “lalalalallala”. The person here is choosing to ignore reality in favor of their preferred lies.

This is the vast majority of the human population. They prefer to hear lies that make them feel good over truths that hurt but can improve their life.

A very basic example of this is if you go and tell your average Indian family that “protein is overrated and that we should all eat homemade desi food like dal and rice and chapati” – They will completely agree with you and say you are very intelligent.

Even though it’s bullshit. Dal has little protein and protein is really important for optimal health.

On the other hand if you told them they should eat a high protein diet, you will hear “protein is bad for your kidneys”.

2) Anger

The second stage of LMM acceptance is anger. The person comes across the site and sees unequivocal proof that all the information comes from hard experience.

They realize that their core beliefs are based on lies and that is the reason why they are broke, unfit, and why their life is shit.

Their reaction is to get angry at me for speaking the truth instead of being angry at the people who taught them the lies and nonsense in the first place.

This is where the type of accusation changes.

“You are an incel” becomes “you are a manwhore”

“You live in your mom’s basement” becomes “you are obsessed with money and there’s more to life than money”

It is a sign of anger at me and disappointment in themselves. They will pretend that me making money from my businesses means I have no life and all I do is sit on my computer obsessing about making money.

It’s a coping mechanism that unsuccessful people use to make themselves think they are better than successful people. “I may not be rich but rich people are unhappy anyway” which is of course pure cope because rich people are much happier than broke and middle class people. This is not even debatable.

People at this level will read the classic LMM piece on the importance of fucking women instead of worrying about their pasts and say things like “you are corrupting women by having sex with them before marriage”.

Everyone knows that the modern woman is actively looking to get fucked by a man. She’s not on a dating app to make friends. She does not go on a date with a man to develop business connections.

They are doing it because they are seeking sex and these women would “get corrupted” (in their words) regardless of whether I sleep with them or someone else.

In reality, they are frustrated about the fact that they lack game and aren’t sleeping with women, but will eventually have to marry these women after men like me have had our fun with them.

Instead of picking up a copy of the Book of Pook and The Seduction Bible and learning game, they become angry at me instead and act like I’m the cause of their problems (even though I am the only one offering them any solutions).

Most men never cross the anger phase and become bitter at the world as they grow older.

3) Bargaining

Guys who make it past the anger phase eventually end up at the bargaining phase. Here they start to accept that LMM is right, but they act like the truth does not apply to them.

“Yes these guys are sleeping with a ton of women, but these women are whores. I am looking for a good high quality woman so it’s fine that I barely get any girls.”

“Online business is really hard. These guys are the survivors and don’t understand survivorship bias.”

“No one cares about how fit I am. I am smart and I am tall. I am desirable whether or not I go to the gym.”

Of course it’s still them coping with the reality of the world, but at least they are no longer angry. It is progress.

4) Depression

Just because someone refuses to accept reality does not mean that reality does not apply to him.

As life goes on, they realize that it’s not just “the sluts” who sleep around with men on dating apps… most women do. They are just DISCREET ABOUT IT (this is 10x true for Indian women). [Note: If you’re Indian, click and read that link]

All the illusions they built to protect their ego fall apart as life keeps throwing punches their way.

The girl he went out with a few times and fell in love with? Oh yeah she’s used the apps and had a few boyfriends before. Whoops looks like many of the “good girls” aren’t so good as he thought.

The friend he was mocking for wasting his money doing online courses and working hard to build a business? That friend is pulling 20x his salary and works half as much as he does. Ouch.

The idea that he was desirable because he is smart and tall? That didn’t pan out. Girls seem more interested in all these muscular guys.

They keep getting hit by life over and over again. They become sad and unhappy about the world.

At this point they have a 50/50 chance of either deep diving into LMM and embracing reality and working with it to live a great life, or just getting black pilled.

5) Acceptance

A tiny minority of the general population makes it here. Many take the Live Intentionally: 90 Day Self-Improvement Program and change their entire life.

They start lifting weights. New muscle starts to show up. They learn about nutrition. They start losing fat.

They learn about game. They start talking to women differently. Suddenly women are much more interested in them.

He gets more experience with girls. He gets a few fuckbuddies. The experience helps him pick the right woman for marriage later.

He starts trying to build a business from the internet. Eventually he starts making more than his salary.

Then he engineers his layoff and gets paid a severance.

Then he wonders why he didn’t start a business so many years ago?

Where would he be if he had started sooner?

Why did he not read the entire LMM archive as soon as he found it?

But hey, better late than never.

– Harsh Strongman